It’s been a month since I switched to the overnight shift at my job. With the exception of the last three years I worked as a flight attendant (2018–2020), usually doing the overnight flights to Europe, I’ve told myself that I was a morning person. Creatively, the early morning hours were my prime time to create. It was then that I could focus for an extended period of time. With my new shift, I’m still adjusting. And I’m learning that every day you simply must try to do your best.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Throughout most of my life, I’ve set high expectations for myself. I always wanted to do things perfectly, wanted everything to go according to plan. And when they didn’t, I’d chastise myself. I wasn’t, then, mindful of the negative self-talk or the impact it had. Then I’d redouble my efforts, hoping to get back on track but usually ending up burnt out instead. Is that how you do your best…?
In chasing perfection, it took me a long time to realize that the most important thing was to just show up and do the work. I needed to stop worrying about how good something was or wasn’t. I needed to stop tweaking things here and there, and just finish something. And instead of moving forward, most things just stalled. My writing. My running. And my life. As I obsessed over getting everything perfect, I missed, as Ryan Holiday points out in Discipline is Destiny, “the forest for the trees, because ultimately the biggest miss of all is failing to get the shot off.”1
Do Your Best
In life, we must traverse the valleys and the mountains, the good days and the not-so-good. But in all that we do and face, what is crucial is to do your best. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. And if you wait until the book, the choreography, the business plan, or anything else is perfect, you’re never going to get your shot off.
Let me, then, leave you today with this last thought…
You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And, best of all, you do not need anyone’s permission to be—unapologetically—who you are.
- Holiday, R. (2022). Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control, New York, Portfolio/Penguin, p. 132. [↩]
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