The purpose behind personal growth is often presented as: To be your best.
But in many cases, trying to be your best isn’t the best option, and it might even introduce a series of obstacles on your path to personal growth.
Defining “The Best”
The greatest obstacle you might face when striving to be your best is defining what your “best” actually is. What does being at your best involve? How can you be sure that that is your best?
The definition of the word “best” is – practically – very vague and, therefore, hard to aim for.
Your Best or Mine?
One of the main reasons why it’s so hard to determine what our best actually is is that we mix what is possible for us and what is possible for others. We judge ourselves by what others have achieved, which either means we set too high a target for ourselves, or too low a target.
Suppose I found out that a writer managed to write a complete book in 3 weeks. Being a writer (albeit an amateur), I might set that as a target for myself, while overlooking the fact that this writer I heard about may have more talent or experience than I do. I’d be setting a target for myself that’s based on someone else’s capabilities, without first discovering what my own capabilities are!
Tolerating Setbacks
“Best” and “perfect” usually go hand in hand. When we want to be our best, we expect to be perfect as well. Apart from the fact that “perfect” is also hard to define, we may end up feeling guilty and depressed whenever we experience a setback.
Setbacks remind us that we have not achieved our goal. And since setbacks are very common, they become a constant reminder that we are failing to reach our destination.
A Moving Target
What’s interesting about our best is that it is constantly changing based on our progress. The more we grow, the further away our best becomes, because our potential to grow expands. When we equip ourselves with more knowledge, greater skills and a set of other tools, we can achieve a lot more.
This is definitely not a bad thing, but can be confusing when you haven’t clearly defined what you mean by being your best.
The Next Step
The distinction we need to draw in personal growth is between the destination we aim to reach and the next step we will take towards our destination. Aiming for the best tends to combine the two, so we expect to become the best now, without acknowledging the series of steps we need to take in order to make a complete transition to the person we want to be.
And this is where I believe becoming better is best.
This is when you aim to take a step towards improvement rather than a leap to your destination. You will feel encouraged by the progress you are making rather than feel overwhelmed by the distance ahead.
You will have a more tangible measure of growth rather than aiming for a target you have yet to define.
@haideralmosawi
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I like the best part of this topic. There is a tendency sometimes to make things perfect, when perfect is something that never comes. A commander once said “A very good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week” I live by it.
Yes, and especially true when you’re designing websites. You can’t have a perfect design from scratch
Very true. We raised with the idea that says: if they can do it then we can. Then discovered how wrong it is. People do differs in their abilities, moods, tolerance..etc. So if U R the best or can do the best in this, I can do the best on that. We can check what other ppl R doing 2 improve ourselves. But in the end we do it our way & 2 what make us feel more comfortable & more us. As aunt Mufeeda said 2 me once: enjoy the process without any rush.