Do Your Best
The Fourth Agreement
Introduction
In this fourth agreement Don Miguel stresses that doing your best should take into account present conditions.
Consider walking one mile on a 400 meter track, on two separate occasions, and comparing the results. The first time you walk you are healthy and vibrant and finish the mile in 12 minutes. The second time you walk you have the flu and finish the mile in 22 minutes. On which effort did you do your best? According to Don Miguel, you did your best in both efforts.
What do you think? Before you say, ‘yes, I agree’, consider whether or not you rationalize your sick performance with statements like, ‘I would have done better if…’. If both efforts were your best, then why are you comparing them?
The Fourth Agreement: Do Your Best
I’ve been told on two separate occasions, by two different people that I am an underachiever. I sometimes wonder how many other people think this about me? How many people have either said this to you, or think this about you, do you think?
In my opinion, this isn’t malicious, it’s because we’re conditioned to perceive one another through the lens of expectation, not effort. I’m starting to hope they were right about me, because maybe it’s a good thing? To recognize my best effort even if I’m not meeting expectations. Because I don’t get a vote when it comes to extrinsic expectations, so I’m not going to live up to them.
If you’re beholden to expectations then your understanding of effort is distorted. The corporate workspace offers a familiar example. Have you ever been really proud of an effort only to be told that it didn’t meet expectations? If that has happened to you, did you ultimately agree with the person assessing your work?
Just because the effort wasn’t appreciated doesn’t mean it wasn’t pure, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t your best. Conditions matter, ‘your best’ will be impacted by the other circumstances of your life at the time.
Failing to appreciate the impact of life circumstances on effort means fully adopting a mindset firmly fixed on meeting expectations. This perspective leads us into comparison with others and with ourselves. These traps dull our senses, and overtime we lose our ability to judge whether or not we did our best. Where do we turn when we can no longer evaluate our efforts ourselves?
Do you feel it’s dangerous to relinquish our ability to evaluate our effort to someone else?
Can you think of any consequences this may have on your self-confidence and joy?
Doing your best, and other’s perceptions of your best, are independent. It can be beautiful when they’re aligned, but if they are misaligned that shouldn’t be a tragedy. If expectation is intricately weaved into your idea of effort, then cleave them,and see how it feels.