Category Archives: Effort

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later

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“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”

– Og Mandino, 20th Century American motivational author

Image from Flickr by symphony of love.

Image from Flickr by symphony of love.

Asking people to do their best, to seek excellence, on a key project or top priority seems like the ultimate cliché of coaching. Blogs, books, and quotes related to this simple idea abound.

What does doing your best truly mean? For most of us, it often seems impossible, given the image we have in our minds about how our “best” can look.

Consider the idea that we all have a “best continuum,” in which what we’re capable of varies depending on the day or time. Consider, too, that your actions are like planting seeds and tending a garden, where all efforts count and add up.

Exercise:

What does your best effort look like today? Take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate yourself, knowing that the sum total of all your daily bests will bring you the harvest you seek.

The price of Anything

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“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

– Henry David Thoreau, American author, philosopher and transcendentalist

QC #1011b

One of the first quotes I ever shared in The Quotable Coach series was “time is the coin of life” – how we spend our time and who we spend it with literally has a price.

Exercise:

Examine your life domains and ask yourself if each investment of your valuable life equity was worth it.

Consider making a few adjustments by doing more of some things, less of others, and starting a few new and interesting activities – and of course stopping those intolerable ones that you regret the most.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

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“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States

In my coaching work with clients, I have a favorite simple technique to help them solve problems. I refer to this as a “pivot point exercise.” It involves three simple steps:

1.       Identify the current reality of a situation – what’s working and not working.
2.       Describe your vision for the future that you and others desire.
3.       Decide what new and different actions you and others can take that move you from the current reality toward your committed vision.

Exercise:

Capture this three-step pivot process on a few post-it notes and place them strategically in your home and in your place of work.

Add the word “repeat” as the fourth step to build your own self-coaching muscle to move your world forward.

“The highest reward for a person’s toil… “

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“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

– John Ruskin, 19th century English artist and philanthropist

PROGRESS 1
I am a work in progress. How about you? With the wide variety of daily experiences we all have, I believe that we are constantly evolving and becoming a fuller expression of ourselves.

We all work each day to earn the compensation that allows us to care for ourselves and others. Ruskin’s quote, however, points to the less recognized and often subtle developments that accompany such experiences.

Exercise:

Explore how your daily efforts further your journey toward more fulfilling relationships, enhance creativity, expand greater self-esteem, support vibrant health, and extend your pursuit of wisdom.

How are you going beyond your basic psychological and physiological needs to pursue your own self-actualization? Consider Googling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to explore this concept in more depth.

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”

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“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”

– Author Unknown

Many years ago, I attended a seminar where the leader suggested – very cynically – that the reason most people get up in the morning is because they did not die in their sleep. Wow, what a horrible thought!

This quote is why I, and perhaps many engaged, optimistic individuals, get up each morning – to make themselves and their world a bit better, each and every day.

With this sense of purpose – to improve their worlds – they awake with both the intention and the opportunity to influence their lives for the better.

Exercise:

How can you structure your professional and personal life in order to take what’s good and make it better, and take what’s already better and make it your best?

Quote from Charles M. Schwab

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“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.”

– Charles M. Schwab, entrepreneur in the steel industry

Carrots or sticks?  Encouragement or criticism? It’s a choice we make daily at work and at home.

How do you feel when you are acknowledged and encouraged in your efforts? How do you feel when others judge, criticize, and demean your efforts?

Why is it that a fundamental human trait is to be right and to make others wrong? Just look at our political parties to see what can occur.

Exercise:

Put on a pair of imaginary “approval glasses”, and look at the people around you, and the world, to find out what is good and right.

Share this empowering perspective with others, and help them find their own “approval glasses” to wear.