272 ~ The Power of Doing Your Best and the Reality of Imperfection

Hello Magical Human & welcome back to Madison Mindset the Podcast 🧚🏼

Listen to this episode for a:
• chat about the pressure of perfection 
• dive into Maya Angelou’s quote on doing your best 
• dive into self-growth and understanding mistakes 
• moment of encouragement to embrace imperfections in life 
• reminder to practice self-compassion and compassion towards others

We explore the importance of doing your best while acknowledging the inevitability of mistakes in the growth process. The episode emphasizes that everyone is learning at their own pace and encourages self-compassion and understanding in both personal and interpersonal journeys.

'Do your best until you know better'

(that's all the world can ask from you)

Love,

Madison M xx

Chapters

• 0:08 Do Your Best and Learn
• 13:58 Continuous Growth and Learning

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hello Magical Human and welcome back to another 22 Minutes of Magic episode. In this episode, we're going to have a really brief chat about doing your best, because we know that's hard sometimes. It's hard. Sometimes, you know, you feel like you're trying to be the best, you're trying to be excellent, you're trying to make no mistakes and do everything perfectly, and all of this and it's challenging, it's difficult. You're worrying about not being enough, not being good enough, not doing enough, all of these things. And you know, even sometimes, with the power of hindsight because hindsight is a magical thing you can look back and go oh, why didn't I do it this way? Why didn't I say this? Why didn't I do that? You know, why didn't I be like that? You know, and I think it's really frustrating, until you really understand the nature of things.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Okay, you may have heard a relatively famous quote by Maya Angelou and that is do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. I'm going to repeat that Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. These words I absolutely live by at the moment because it's you know, especially when you look back on things and you think, oh, I should have done it this way, I should have done it that way, this would have been better. You know you were doing the best you could in that moment. You know and that's what I will often say to many clients and many students who have issues with someone you know and many students who have issues with someone you know it really helps to understand that people are doing the best they can at the time, with who they are in that moment, with the skills they have, with the triggers that they have, with the memories and the issues that they have. They've got their own set of issues. You know everyone's doing the best they can. They've got their own set of issues. Everyone's doing the best they can. Even if you think that best is a pretty lousy effort, it's still the best they can do. And how can you be mad at someone who's doing the best they can do? It's tricky.

Speaker 1: 2:36

I think people should look at self-growth and think about how can I become a better person? How can I handle this better next time? How can I grow? How can I learn? How can I do this? How can I do that? It's really important, but a lot of people aren't thinking that way, which means if people are doing the best they can, they're doing the best they can. You have to learn to let that be as it is, and I think the most difficult person to allow to be imperfect, to make mistakes and all the rest is yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Okay, so you make mistakes, but you were doing your best. You know you're doing your best you could in that moment. You know you're doing your best you could in that moment. That's it. If you know better now, maybe if you know a better way to treat someone or a better way to handle a certain situation, or a better way to achieve whatever task is at hand, whatever social situation or whatever within your relationship. Once you know better, then do better. But don't be so upset about not doing better in the moment, because it's not always that simple. It's not always that simple. Okay, everyone is doing the best they can, including yourself.

Speaker 1: 4:00

If you're looking back and thinking I should have done this, why didn't I know that? How can you get mad at yourself for not knowing something? You know you can't? You can't. Possibly and this is how we learn Chances are you wouldn't know how to do it better unless you'd made those mistakes, same with other people, you have to let them make mistakes. You might think you're doing your best today. You know, with your partner, with your children or with your job or whatever it is, you might think you're doing your best. You might think you're doing your best via the environment. You know I'm doing the best thing for the environment, or the best thing for this, or the best thing for that. You might learn a little bit more tomorrow and find out you had it wrong. That always happens. It happens all the time. You know the things I was saying and talking about a couple of years ago. A lot of it I still agree with, but a lot of it I've learned more, but I was doing my best in that moment.

Speaker 1: 5:04

How can I get mad at myself for not doing my best, for not knowing? You have to learn somehow and unfortunately that means for many of us it means becoming comfortable doing things the wrong way the first time. It means you're going to learn through experience. You're going to learn through mistakes, trial and error. You're going to learn over time and that is the only way. That's how you learn. That's how children learn. It's how we learn.

Speaker 1: 5:52

The issue, there are two issues of this whole thing, and they're not even issues. They're just things that we need to work out for ourselves. Okay, and they're not even issues, they're just things that we need to work out for ourselves. Okay, there is absolutely no problem with learning this way, because this is the way you're meant to learn. That's how everyone's learning. It's how nature's learning trial and error, make mistakes, do better, evolve, adapt Okay, this is how it works. The issues that we're running into.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Number one we are not okay being imperfect. You want to be perfect now. You want to know all the right things now. You want to be perfect at it right now. You don't like looking back and saying, oh, I could have done it this way, I should have done it that way, you know. And you don't like moving forward not really sure what you're doing, or wishing that you could do it perfectly, or is everyone going to approve of it or what's going to happen? You have to get very comfortable in the fact that no one is perfect and we're all evolving individually and together. You have to get comfortable with that, which means, if you make mistakes and you hurt someone accidentally in whatever way, it makes you strong enough to show up and go oh, that was my mistake. I'm so sorry. Next time I handle it this way. You know it makes you strong enough to look back and go oh okay, that's what I can learn from this experience. It's strength to be able to take those things that you think you did imperfectly and allow them to become something that is the basis for your growth. That is the reason that you know what you know now. That is the reason you can love the way you love. Now that you can care the way you care, now that you can show up in the way that you show up. Now you have to go through those learnings and teachings. It's the only way.

Speaker 1: 7:55

The other issue that comes up Many people are not doing their best. Okay, you can be forgiven for making mistakes once, even twice, in different situations. You can be forgiven for repeating old patterns and things like this. You can be forgiven for being triggered again and again and for falling into old habits. You can be forgiven for those things as long as you're learning and trying to move forward, and in some circumstances that's really easy or easier, right? None of it's easy. Sometimes it's easier, other times it's much harder, especially if something has become a habit for you, a pattern, if it's something that has been written down literally in your DNA, if it's something that you've been doing since you're a little kid or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 8:58

And then there's the other situation where people are literally just not trying their best, doing the bare minimum, bare minimum in their relationship, bare minimum in their families, at work, with themselves. You're not trying your best and that's why you feel yuck, because you know you're not doing your best, because you know you can do better. You're more than capable of doing better, but you're not, for whatever reason, whether it's habits, fear, worry, routine, whatever it is. For some you're not doing your best and that feels terrible. I would argue personally that it feels way worse in that situation than it feels in the other situation I spoke about, which is not feeling okay with not doing everything perfectly right now. Okay, there's two extremes here there's not really trying hard enough and there's trying too much. Okay, don't aim for excellent. Just do your best and understand that your best is probably most likely not going to be perfect, or it might be perfect for one person and terrible for the next person. You just have to do your best. Understand that doing your best is not doing nothing. It's trying, try and do your best, that is all.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Children are great examples of this. They're always trying. They're always trying, putting in effort, learning. It's all unconscious and they're doing their best. And you watch, especially children, because they're growing and rapidly excelling at being a human being. Right, it slows down once you get older, but you can see it in front of your eyes that they learn, they're trying, they do their best, they try again, they fail, they try again, they learn and then they do their best and suddenly their best is great. So you can see the evolution of this.

Speaker 1: 11:13

But as an adult, you don't allow yourself the same grace. You don't allow yourself the freedom to try, the freedom to do your best and the freedom to fail so that you can do better next time. So the lessons from this, and if you were to take anything from this episode, it would be that you're doing your best. As long as you're doing the best you can. That's all the world can ask from you, that's all anyone can ask from you. And if that turns out to not be great with hindsight, or if you found out, you've grown a lot and you've learned a lot more. Well done, that's part of life. Now do better. Perfect. Now you can do better than last time, but even then it still won't be perfect. There's more to learn and remember in any situation.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Try, just try. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be as good as the other person doing that thing. Someone else's best might look better than your best, but it's still the best, right? What does that word mean? The best? It means the best that I can, the best that we all can. We're all doing the best we can. If someone else is better, looks better than you're better. That's part of human evolution. We are all at different rates of growth and learning.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Just do the best you can and use the people who are doing better than you as teachers, as guides, as support, but try, try in every way. Try for your partner, try for your children, try for your work, try for yourself, try for your body, try. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to know all the perfect health tips and tricks. You don't have to know how to cook 100 meals. You don't have to know how to grow plants perfectly. You don't have to know all of this stuff right now. And what's holding you back a lot of the time is the fact that you know you don't know much about it and it won't be perfect. But the reality is you just have to try, and sometimes trying is your best. Just getting out of bed in the morning sometimes is doing your best. But keep trying.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Don't let yourself fall into a plateau where you're not trying anything anymore. You're just floating along. Floating along, not learning, not evolving, not trying. Don't end up there. It feels terrible.

Speaker 1: 13:58

No one is meant to be living in a stagnant river. You've got to be moving. Let it move, play with it, explore, experiment. You are strong enough to do that, you are. Explore, have fun and, more than anything, understand that we're all doing our best. Everyone is doing their best in every given moment. But that quote I love, love that quote. Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better. So simple. If you don't know better, how do you do better? It's impossible. Live by this every day. How can I do my best? Do your best. If you know more the next day, then do better. Then.

Speaker 1: 15:00

I hope this episode helped you in understanding that no matter what you're trying to do in your life, it relates to everything. No matter what you're trying to do. The key is very simple Try, do your best, with an understanding that it won't be perfect and you'll probably do better next time. Okay, that's all, literally try, try again, try, try again and you'll learn. You can do this, you'll learn you can do this. Send this episode to anyone you love who perhaps needs this message, and let's support each other in understanding that we're all doing our best and to give each other permission to try and to not be perfect, so that we can all feel the freedom of growth and of life. Thank you for being here, magical human, I appreciate you. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you you.