Is Your Best Good Enough?
November 28th, 2006If you are a self motivated person you generally feel like you are on top of things and in control of your life. Self motivated people usually display a higher level of confidence than most others and less motivated people easily pick up on this. I remember when I was in school there was a guy who was a few of years older than me who was in almost every sport team in our school. He was in the tennis, swimming, track, water polo, rugby and hockey teams and he was also my neighbor. He would swim for miles in the local public pool before school and run laps around the park near my house after school almost every day. On top of this his grades were excellent, I really wondered how he found the motivation to do so much, so when I made the tennis team which was when he was in his last year of high school I worked up the courage to ask him. Before that I had been too shy to ask him because I always looked upon him as being like the six million dollar man and just too cool for school. What he told me I will never forget.
I expected that perhaps his parents were the type of people who demanded excellence from him in everything he did and he was constantly under pressure at home but this was not the case. He told me his parents never pushed him in sports or with his studies and that they were also amazed at how motivated he was towards anything he pursued. So of course this leads me to ask him the most obvious question. Why are you so motivated and how do you keep up the motivation? His answer seemed so simple to him and it was almost as if he thought everyone else thought like him although I am sure he knew this was not the case. Before I mention what he said I would like to add that this guy was only 18 years old at the time.
He told me he had always had a plan and he works towards that plan everyday. If it is swimming he is doing he pushes himself as hard as he can when he’s in the pool. When he is running on the track or playing tennis he gives it 100% of his concentration while he is there. It didn’t matter what he did he told me, he pushed himself as hard as he could while he was in the moment. He told me he lived in the moment and the moment will not be around forever. Whether or not he would ever come back in another life he did not know but what he did know was he will never again relive each moment he has right now, so he makes the most of every moment. He said this was how he lived and he could not imagine living any other way. Looking back now he certainly sounded older than a guy of only eighteen years.
While talking with him I realized the only person putting any pressure on him was himself. He told me he was constantly asking himself, is this the best I can be? I guess he continued to ask himself that question for a while after he left school because although I lost contact with him after he finished school I remember my dad telling me he read in the newspaper that my motivated friend had made the Australian Olympic team a few years later.
Although I see myself as a very motivated person, I don’t put myself in the same category as my old school friend and honestly I think he is one in a million. However, through meeting somebody who is so motivated to take action on such a scale with everything he does has had a lasting effect on me. It showed me that if something is important to you, why shouldn’t you give it everything you’ve got? There will always be time to rest and relax but while you are engaged in the pursuit of a project no matter what it might be, stop once in a while and ask yourself. Is this the best I can do?
If you are spending one hour per day playing a sport, practicing a musical instrument, learning a new language or maybe building a website, make it a good hour. A constructive hour lasts the same amount of time as a lazy hour so why not make it count. When you do your best you walk away with a feeling of satisfaction and that has got to be the greatest feeling of all.
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December 6th, 2006 at 2:38 am
Wow!
Great post. You can easily see that the same time can be spent in lazing around or in doing something constructive. Of course, some time must be spent in relaxation, but a lot of work can be done if you put your mind to it.
December 14th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
[…] John Hill writes about how you can improve your life in Is Your Best Good Enough? posted at Universe Of Success. A great post that will/could change your life. […]
January 25th, 2007 at 3:44 am
This is a wonderful post. I like the way it recognizes excellence and effort on different levels. After all, we’re each on this planet to make a meaningful contribution. The world would be a very boring place if everyone was the same.