All You Can Do Is Be Your Best Today
By Tony Fahkry
The Aggregation Of Small Habits Leads To Greatness
Do you realize your best is yet to come? How do you feel when you read that statement? Do you think: “My best is behind me”? But what if you don’t know what you’re capable of unless you continue to move forward towards your goals and dreams? Let me give you an example. When Michael Jordan failed to make his high school basketball team, do you think his career was over? Perhaps he thought so at the time because not making the team might have seemed like the end of the road for him, but it wasn’t. It was the beginning of his career as one of the greatest basketballers of all time. Why? Jordan loved to play basketball and spent hours practicing and fine-tuning his skills. The setbacks and defeats he experienced were part of the process to achieve greatness. They were inflection points in his career and why your best is yet to come, as long as you continue moving towards your goals. Warning: you must believe your best is still to come and keep taking the right course of action.
Your best will come from your habits, practice, growth, setbacks, victories, and knowledge gained over the years. To prepare for a better tomorrow, we must commit to the tasks of today that lay the foundation for tomorrow. Nothing good can come of delaying that which we must attend to now. Whilst many of our daily tasks or habits can be tedious and time-consuming, with the right mindset they will transform our efforts into achievement. We must do our best whatever that looks like, knowing the aggregation of small habits leads to greatness. This is the essence of what motivational author and speaker Brendon Burchard refers to in High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way where he writes:
“Being on your A game means that you are giving your best effort with full focus on the singular task at hand. To get it, you need to stoke the internal and external demands of necessity. Specifically, you assume the identity of a high performer and you set up situations that require full immersion.” How does this idea appeal to you? Is this something you’re prepared to invest in or are you already taking inspired action in your life? Whatever the case, investing in ourselves means committing to that which makes our hopes and dreams come alive.
Focus On Priorities That Make You Come Alive
We are the vessel upon which our tomorrow is created or conversely, one in which we will live with regret. Either way, regret is nothing more than ineffective action because we have squandered our time on things that don’t matter. To be your best today requires bringing your whole self to every situation. What do I mean by whole self? I mean the entirety of your being, including your mind, body, and spirit. The person who brings their whole self to their task is inspired by a greater purpose for their life. A person who brings their whole self to their undertakings unites with their deeper intent, so each action is purposefully guided and emanates from passion and direct intention. We are the habits of our yesterdays and the victors of our tomorrows. What we plant in our mind and sow into our hearts becomes the seeds of greatness tomorrow.
So what are you committed to? What actions are delivering you tangible results? We must be clear whether our labor compels us to move forward or keeps us stationary. Stagnancy is a misdirected purpose in the form of resistance because we are frightened by the success of tomorrow. Yet, this is the purpose of daily actions and habits: to sharpen the saw as the late Dr. Stephen Covey wrote in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It is the opportunity to refine, review and reward ourselves for actions we undertake that bring our hopes and dreams alive.
Nothing good can come of setting aside that which can be completed now because what we put off for tomorrow compounds and soon enough we face yet another fear. Our task is to minimize fear from our lives, so we can focus on our highest objectives through purposeful action. We ought to pursue things that make us come alive, not make us feel weary and uninspired. We must do away with commitments and obligations that hinder our progress or better still, delegate them to others so we can focus on that which makes us come alive. We must bring forth the song within our heart because this is the song that touches those who associate with our work. So I ask you: what are you putting off today that may inhibit your tomorrow? Can you commit to the smallest task, even when you feel less inclined to? Without a doubt, if we are inspired by some greater purpose, then the smaller tasks will fuel our actions because a better tomorrow is possible when we commit to being our best today.