I know that doing my best starts with thinking my best.
That’s one of the Affirmation Anthem statements from Jon Acuff’s book, “Soundtracks,” that I’ve been practicing for 23 days now. I have missed days, I have done mornings and forgotten evenings, I’ve done evenings and skipped mornings, but I’m showing up in all my imperfection and believeing that it all counts. Process over perfection, my friends. I’ll get there.
“I know that doing my best starts with thinking my best.” First, I imagine there being resistance to this sentence. I imagine people may have thoughts about “best” and what it means. Does it mean out-performing my neighbor? Does it mean rubbing my excellence in the face of someone going through something hard? Does it mean I’m covered in glitter and laughing while everyone else is wallowing in the muck and mire? No. Not all. Please, do not mistake “best” for living only part of your identity. Please, do not mistake “best” for living in the realm of a power differentials between yourself and the people in your life.
Doing my best actually includes knowing and caring for all parts of me and my life as though they matter and as though they are allowed to take up space. “Doing my best” is not just relegated to the sphere of high performance and mastery. “Best” lives in the realm of wholeness. When I’m at my best in wholeness I can see my weaknesses alongside my strengths and it’s all OK. The best that exists in wholeness never pretends to have learned it all, know it all or assume a false persona that is somehow more together than how we really feel. Are you OK with allowing that “doing your best” applies to when you’re winning and when you’re losing? What does doing your best in grief and sadness look like? What is doing your best mean when you’re in the process of getting a divorce?
“I know that doing my best starts with thinking my best” allows room for everything. For emotion, self-care, patience, help, rejection, success, joy, sadness, all of it. WE lose something when we box “best” up with only the most powerful, successful moments and don’t invite it to give us information in the more ordinary or unappealing parts of life. The wisdom in this sentence, from a place of wholeness, is how it reminds us that our thinking matters no matter what circumstances we may be experiencing and that we owe it to ourselves to place our own hearts, souls, minds and bodies in a position of love. Love for all self in a way that has us walking through it, seeing our own hearts for where they are at and not where we think they SHOULD be at, seeing our stories as significant and worth the time it takes to think in a way that doesn’t trample our self-concept or vision, but cares for and upholds it no matter what.
Think about “best” from wholeness. It’s really the only helpful way to process the word. When “best” lives in wholeness we let down the facade, we stop judging our worth according to how the world receives us from day to day, and we integrate all our knowing into the present moment.
On days when I’m depressed and defeated, doing my best and thinking my best takes on a different vocabulary than on the days when I am flying high and getting shit done. On days when loss feels overwhelming, doing my best by thinking my best actually lets the whole experience live in real time AND, should a light-hearted moment appear, I allow myself the gift of light-heartedness. There was a time when the rules of sadness and depression despised and judged the times when peace and joy would effortlessly appear. Not anymore, man. “Best” lets it all come to the party.