Are you doing this to simply do the best you can do, or are you doing this to do it the best it can be done?

— Gary Keller and Jay Papasan from The One Thing

When I first read this quote my first thought was, I can only give something my best. Then as I usually do I started thinking about health, fitness, and competition.

When we do the open every year we work out on Friday night and energy levels are just awesome and I give that workout everything I have and people are cheering. I am completely wasted after the workout. I gave that workout my best effort but later that night and on Saturday I review the video I took, I identify the bottlenecks that I had, I analyze the time spent on movements and transitions, and I develop a plan of attack to do the workout again on Sunday. After all the preparation I hit the workout again and despite giving the workout by best on Friday I some how do better on Sunday.

Instead of giving my best I did it the best I could do it.

Another example would be training for a competition. Doesn’t matter if it is a 5K run or a CrossFit type competition. You practice and you test and you do the full workout with your partner as hard as you can. Then on game day you beat your best time in practice by 2 minutes. You were exhausted after you were done practicing, what happened? It is the difference between doing your best and doing something the best it can be done.

This is not just about fitness. This mindset change can help you in everyday life. Break through your natural abilities of doing your best and think about how do I do this thing the best it can be done.

You are capable of more.

Cheers,
Berek