The quote “Do the best you can” made famous by the late Maya Angelou, is one of the most popular statements in the world today. It encourages us to not become complacent and accept failure, but to constantly strive for success and never settle for less. This phrase gives us the motivational encouragement to do the best we can do in all that we do, pushing us to become the best version of ourselves.
Doing our best can often be difficult, especially when faced with overwhelming tasks or stressful situations. That is why it is so important to listen to the words of Maya Angelou and push past any feelings of lethargy or resignation. No matter the challenge, it is necessary to bear in mind that achieving our best is possible, even when faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
By focusing on doing our best, we can learn to be thankful for our efforts, even when we fall short of our goals. It is essential to remember that doing our best is an ongoing process, and to be satisfied with our growth, even if it is gradual. No perfection is necessary—all that is required to reap the rewards of the “Do the best you can” mantra is effort.
The journey of doing our best can be used to take charge of our own lives, developing our own personal standards and goals. We should take the opportunity to use “Do the best you can” as a beacon of hope, setting our own opportunities and future successes.
It is important to remember that our best is not in comparison to others, but rather is a comparison to our own capabilities. Making sure not to compare ourselves to impossible standards of others is key, as it can cause us to become discouraged or stressed. To ensure our best remains within reach, it is vital to only measure ourselves against ourselves.
The “Do the best you can” phrase is a timeless staple, encouraging personal growth and self-improvement in our day-to-day lives. Despite its simplicity, the message is powerful and just as applicable as it was when it was first written by Maya Angelou.”Do the best you can” encourages us to always strive for more.
Know Yourself
The most important thing to keep in mind when considering “Do the best you can” is knowing yourself. This includes understanding your capabilities and weaknesses, as well as recognizing your areas of weakness and pushing yourself to be better. It is natural to have doubts, fears and uncertainties, and it is important to be aware of these, but it is also crucial to push past them and accept that you have the ability to do your best.
Understanding your own limits, and expanding on them, will help you become the best version of yourself. With a clear understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, you can better assess the tasks or goals that you set for yourself. This will ensure that you are setting achievable goals, while still pushing yourself to be the best.
Knowing yourself also means being honest and accepting of the level of effort anddedication that is required to do your best. Often, the gaps between our expectations and what we arecapable of achieving can cause disappointment and stress. That is why recognizing effort not simply as an endgame, but as an ongoing journey to bettering ourselves is so important.
Through a combination of self-reflection and continual effort, we can achieve our best. With Maya Angelou’s phrase in the forefront of our minds, we can strive to be routinely better versions of ourselves, pushing the boundaries of what we are capable of achieving.
Keep Your Motivation
We can often feel demotivated in our tasks and efforts, leading to halts in progress or feeling of apathy. Keeping our motivation, or even creating motivation, is integral to do our best.
Having resources to draw motivation from can be of use to help keep the task at hand in the forefront of our minds. This may include words of encouragement or quotes, mantras or goals, or even a reminder that efforts take time.
Creating mental pictures to stay motivated is also a powerful tool. These mental pictures represent our goals, often formatted as distant successes or fantasy scenarios. It is important to keep our mental pictures relevant, reminding each of us of the part we play in achieving our goals. This can help to make each task feel more achievable, methodically breaking our goals into more manageable tasks.
Positive mantras can be a great way to refocus our energy on the goal at hand. Formulating mantras that relate to our goals and reflect positively upon our efforts can be a great way to keep ourselves motivated in our efforts. The power of positive reinforcement is a great tool for maintaining focus and motivation in our efforts.
Though we often rely heavily on our external environment for motivation, it is also important to remind ourselves of our inner power. Keeping ourselves informed of how we are capable of being our best can be very powerful in helping to maintain motivation.
Find Your Why
When striving to do our best, it is important to recognize why we are doing so. Asking ourselves “why?” can be a great way to stay focused and motivated in our efforts. With this framework in mind, it is important to focus on our inner motivations, or our individual “why”.
This can be used to create frameworks or journey maps of our goals, with our individual “why”s as our driving force. Rather than focusing on external pressures, such as deadlines or expectations of victories, our “why” should be central, remembering that we are capable of achieving our best if we remain focused on our own initiatives. A focus on external motivation often moves us away from our true internal motivations, and towards a feeling of duty rather than inherent desire.
Keeping the focus on our individual “why” will help in creating a personal drive of proactive ambition. This proactive ambition is a great tool for personal growth, remembering that ‘Do the best you can” is not a command but rather an encouragement, inspiring us to do the best we can for our own ambitions.
For many of us, our “why” may not be clear, but it is important to understand that that is ok. Striving to do our best is often more rewarding when it is, as Maya Angelou says, out of an inherent passion. Allowing ourselves to explore and analyze our individual motivations, desires and dreams is a powerful and personal process, one that will increase our capabilities and move us closer to the best versions of ourselves.
Be Flexible
Being flexible with ourselves and our tasks is also crucial when it comes to doing our best. This means learning to manage our expectations of what we are capable of achieving. It is important to remember that our best will differ from moment to moment, and that as long as we continue to make progress, that is enough.
Flexibility also includes being grateful for the journey and recognizingthat perfection is not a necessity, but rather a chase.Flexibility means allowing room for growth and understanding that failure is a catalyst for improvement. It is essential to learn from our mistakes and not let them detract from the effort that continues to take us towards our goals. Whether it is a minor hiccup or a more significant setback, it is important to recognize that flexibility includes forward motion and not compromise.
Finally, flexibility means being proud of even our smallest victories and understandingthat striving for perfection requires a good level of optimism. By maintaining ourfocus on the paths of progress, we can be proud of where we have been and where we are heading.
Stay Positive
Staying positive is key to maintaining our best efforts. It is often easy to becomebadly affected by our failures and struggles while growing, leading to feelings of slow progress or even resigning our efforts. That is why it is so important to retain a -level of optimism and focus on our successes, no matter how small.
By remembering the words of Maya Angelou, and focusing on “Do the best you can”, we can push past any feelings of hindrance and stay on task. It is important for us to remember that our growth is gradual but incredibly rewarding when we reflect on it.
In moments of difficulty or frustration, it is essential to take a step back and remind yourself of the ongoing process of personal growth. Reassessing our efforts and understanding where effort has already paid off is something that should be remembered and celebrated.
Staying positive in our efforts is also a great way to maintain healthy relationships. This may be with our peers, colleagues or family members. Keeping a positive attitude and not becoming overwhelming in our expectations of others is something to bear in mind, as the journey of doing our best is personal and the path of each individual should be respected.
Take Time To Reflect
The journey towards doing our best is often made up of incremental progress and rarely is a jump to success made. This slow burn-type journey can often go unnoticed, and that is why it is important to recognise how quicklywe can forget the successes we have made.
Making time to reflect on your successes and areas of improvement is a great way tofully realisethe power of the “Do the best you can” quote. Using this reflection time to not only assess successes but also to give ourselves room for self-improvement is key, as repetitive failure can often lead to frustration and feelings of stagnation.
Giving ourselves space to take stock and realign with our individual goals is a great way to recognise the power of “Do the best you can”. By understanding our capabilities and using reflection as a tool to stay on task and motivated,we can use Maya Angelou’s phrase to inspire ourselves to continue striving for our own successes.
