Do Your Best

"Goals don't come without a price. Time, effort, sacrifice and sweat. How will you pay for your goals?" - Usain Bolt

My youngest son is in the middle of his GCSE exams at the moment (or at least the best equivalent his school has created). The first set of exams went well and, in his eyes, they were in line with his expectations.

In recent months we've had a few conversations about school exams. These conversations have ranged from the philosophical to the practical,:

• "Why do I have to do them? What's the point?" 
• "How can I possibly revise everything we've done?"

It struck me that these are precisely the conversations we have every day. Usually, they're just in our head, but they're still the same.

• "Why am I doing this? Is it really the best use of my time and skills?" 
• "How can I get all this done and still feel like I'm living the dream rather than running on the hamster wheel?"
• "What is Good Enough?"

This last question is the one that the pragmatists amongst us ask all the time. I love Pareto's Law which reminds us that 80% of the value is usually delivered in the first 20% of the time. The rest of the time we choose to invest is delivering only marginal value.

As people aiming to deliver change and help others do the same, being effective with our time is critical. The challenge is not "how to get everything done" it's "how to deliver the things that add the most value."

This value assessment applies to all areas of our lives - our work, our families, our communities and our projects.

Do Your Best

Which brings me back to my son, in fact both my sons. Whilst one of them is studying for exams, the other is training for athletic championships.

Throughout their lives I have insisted that I am not concerned about the results they achieve, only the effort they expend along the way.

In most endeavours the outcomes we achieve are dependent on many things, some of which may be out of our control. For example:

• The Examining bodies will introduce grading schemes based on aggregated data across the whole group taking exams. This means my son's grades will be affected slightly by the average grades achieved.
• Similarly, my eldest son's position in various tournaments will be affected by the performance of others and, of course, the weather (this is the UK afterall!!)

Therefore, it is sensible to limit our assessment of "best effort" to the work we put in ahead of time.

When I reward my son's for "doing their best" it is for the visible effort they expend in preparing for the main event - activities like revising, organising schedules, getting enough sleep, sacrificing "play time" to train.

This has allowed them to gain some perspective when things don't turn out as they hoped. It's a great lesson for all of us.

Let others worry about the outcomes

There will be times when our best efforts are not good enough. We will train every day. We will follow a rigorous eating regime. We will push ourselves the the limit and still come up against Usain Bolt in the Final.

Sometimes, only we know the effort we've put in.

Others may jump to conclusions or judge our outcomes harshly, but if we know we have done our best, there is literally nothing we can do about their opinions. Bottom line: the thoughts and opinions of others are none of our business.

We could lose a lot of sleep, agonising over things we can do absolutely nothing about. Or, we can recognise the only influence we have is over the here and now and set our own goals.

Reasons To Change

Not worrying about our results is not the same as assessing them to extract learning. If we know we did our best, we can investigate the outcomes objectively and consider - what do I need to change in my preparation to enhance my performance?

If I didn't give it my best shot, then the easiest place to start with my change thinking is with me. What got in the way? What was it about my thinking/lifestyle/habits that prevented optimum performance?

So, what have you been working for recently? Can you look at your outcomes objectively? Can you see opportunities to improve?

If you'd like to join a community of like-minded people and gather some support as you work through challenges like these, head on over to this page and find out how the TCM Community can help you.