I'm Doing my Best!
I sent a quick message to the office this morning:
“I’m doing my best!”
In Austin traffic, this means you are sitting still, with no where to go, and the voice on the GPS is alerting you to just go home and not bother. But that's not an option. We at Momentum have a commitment to be on time. We work together, so anyone missing a work meeting has a significant impact on the tasks at hand. We take our impact on each other and our work seriously and clean up any mistakes that may have negatively affected someone or someone's work.
Luckily, there is also an understanding at Momentum that there are things in nature that are beyond our control, and there is Grace for Traffic.
I thought about a dad in another car, who had just dropped off a child at the elementary, and was then dangerously weaving around me in the school parking lot. “UGH,” I thought, “what’s wrong with this guy? This is a School Zone!”
But then, as my coaching has taught me here at Momentum, I took a moment to consider that his situation might be completely different from mine. I considered that his office might not give the amount of Grace that mine does, and his boss might have given him a warning about being late again.
Is He doing His Best?
Is the man weaving through traffic doing his best? Is the threatening boss doing his best?
I have to believe, for my own sanity and my own well being, that the answer is “yes.”
Doing our best doesn’t mean being perfect. It means doing our best in the current situation at the current time in the current mind-frame with our current knowledge. By believing that everyone is doing their best, I can release myself from the situation and give every person the benefit of the doubt.
But doing our best also doesn't mean "Well...... I Tried."
"There is no try. There is only Do" - Yoda
So whether it be me or an angry driver, we're not just trying to do our best, we are doing our best.
My best used to look much different. I used to be a harried mom. I used to allow outside situations, like traffic and school zones, to cause me to panic. I used to want to control situations that were outside of my zone of control. I used to get anxious about little things. So just because that is different for me NOW doesn’t mean this is true for everyone today. I am doing my best, and he, I choose to believe, is doing his.
I also have to choose to accept that my best may not have the impact I was intending, and so the next part of doing my best is cleaning up anything that negatively impacts the business or someone else.
Now, in the case of an angry driver, he may not circle back and make it right Today. But hopefully, his best will change and he can make a bigger impact down the road. Sometimes our timelines for improving impact and cleaning up mistakes isn't immediate, but we would hope that it is imminent.
Carrie
Executive Assistant, Momentum Consulting
Fundamental #5: ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST It’s essential that we always do our very best. If there is ever a question about quality, go back, stay at it until the question is removed.