Have you noticed that many times doing your best isn’t enough? I’ve been in those situations many times. I tried my best, but it was not working – it was just not enough. Seems familiar?
Well, then I have one, even more familiar thing. These experiences easily run a program all the women have – that WE are not enough. Which always turns into an awful downward spiral…
I haven’t met a woman who doesn’t run a not-enough program, have you? That’s why I start thinking about what inner game we should apply to solve or at least overcome the situation when our best is not good enough.
Is there something we do wrong all the time? Is there anything we could change to get a different result? And I found a solution! The one that works every single time (plus, it’s super simple).
Just stop doing your best.
Yes, you’ve read well – stop doing your best.
But if we stop making efforts, we won’t achieve our goal either – I almost hear you telling me this. But I didn’t say, Stop making efforts. I just said, Stop doing your best.
And then what?
Tune in for this episode of the Prosperity Approach as I’m sharing what strategy you should apply to change your whole world (and how to do it).
Let’s dive in!
Stop Running I’m-Not-Enough Programs
There is a huge difference between men and women. See, while we’re running this program of not being enough, men generally don’t do that.
I had lots of conversations with my husband about trying my best and failing to reach my goal. But I never heard him (or any other men) complaining that he is not good enough or doesn’t deserve to get the life he wants.
I’ve been studying a lot about Alison Armstrong, the queen of relationships. (I highly recommend her). She says that men have a sense of self that women don’t have. She’s even like, It’s not that we have low self-esteem as women – we have no self-esteem.
On the other hand, men’s self-esteem is, so to say, factory-installed. So although Women naturally run these programs of I’m not good/worthy enough, it’s something we CAN stop doing.
“Self-confidence is the most difficult kind of confidence for a woman to have. Shoe-confidence, knowledge-confidence, even body-confidence are easier to attain.” – Alison Armstrong
When Your Best Isn’t Enough
One of the ways to stop these programs is to stop doing our best. It can be challenging in the beginning because all our life they were telling us: If you do your best, then that’s enough. But it was a mixed message. Because guess what – usually, it wasn’t enough.
At least it wasn’t enough for my parents. For instance, I always had a hard time with math. But I was a super overachiever back in my high school days. So I put my back into that – I was going in early for tutoring, I was in tutoring groups, I did my best literally, and I had gotten a B plus.
That was the result I was really proud of, and I was thrilled because I knew I had done my best. But the feedback I got from my parents was how disappointed they were that it wasn’t an A – because they knew I could do better.
But I knew I did my best and was absolutely confused by the mixed message I got from my parents. We get such mixed messages all the time from our society, even from our own minds. So we conclude that our best actually isn’t good enough.
Of course, we as women have to take it one step further – If my best wasn’t good enough, therefore, I’m not good enough because my best is part of who I am. That’s why you got to stop doing your best.
And what you need to do is what’s required!
Are You Doing What’s Required?
Once you put down the impossible standard of your best, you’ll start looking at your objective and what is required for you to get this objective. Then it’s OK if you’re not doing your best every day.
For example, let’s talk about weight loss. One of the things they tell you to do within weight loss programs is to drink a whole lot of water. But if you just do your best, you’ll probably not hit your water intake goal (especially if you don’t like water).
But if you’re doing what’s required, you can create a strategy to be successful. If you need to drink 64 ounces of water daily (that’s what’s required), you can take one 8-ounce cup of water every hour for eight hours. Or one every other hour for 16 hours.
When you start doing what’s required, then it’s not about the level of effort or how hard you try. It’s not about you doing your best. It’s about the strategy – like to set up a 60-minute alarm, or reminders on my phone, or have a bottle of water next to me all day… or all of that.
Then, when you’re at hour six, and you’ve had just four glasses of water, then you’ll be like, I better double my intake over the next two hours and have two cups every hour.
See? Now when your value and enoughness are not on the table, you can be very observational, almost clinical, about your objective and if you’re doing what you need to do to achieve it.
The best thing about doing what’s required is that you can apply it to absolutely everything:
- weight loss journey
- health journey
- relationships you have with others
- financial and professional goals
- relationship with God and your level of spirituality
When Your Relationship Is Falling Apart
Take, for example, your relationship with your partner – you’re doing your best, but it is falling apart. Let’s put our best aside and think, OK, what do I need to do to have the relationship of my dreams that we don’t have? Better communication.
(Most of us are lousy communicators. We start with a regular discussion and somehow end up in an argument without being aware of how that happened.)
So, to improve our communication, I need to figure out what I’m doing to trigger him. Also, I should not be afraid to notice that he closes off when I see that happening. We need to talk about that, and I need to ask, Why are you shutting down? Did I say something that offended you?
Also, I need to be open to whatever feedback is going to come. Because if I want to have this deeply satisfying relationship with my partner, I have to do what’s required to achieve that. That means being open to his feedback, identifying my own gaps, and changing the way of communication.
No matter which part of your life you apply this approach, if you didn’t hit your goal, you can look back and be like, Here are the things that were required – what did I not do? And then you can do what you miss.
Also, if you actually did all the required things, you can see if something was required but you didn’t know about. Maybe there was a step you missed because you weren’t aware of it. So now you know, and you can repeat it and do everything you need to get you to your goal.
Ask Right Questions
Once you’re not focusing on your enoughness and start thinking and analyzing what you need to do to achieve an objective, a whole new life will open up for you. This will help you skill up in your inner game and your thoughts.
Instead of berating yourself all the time with the question What am I doing wrong, you can be really clinical about it. You can look at the situation from an observation point of view and ask:
- What do we get to do?
- What do I get to change in my thoughts?
- Where do I get to skill up in my communication?
- What do I get to improve in my marketing skills (or marketable skills)?
If you ask such questions, you’ll find solutions to your problems. But if you ask yourself, Why am I not good enough? then you’ll get answers that will match that question as well. Because you:
- have red hair
- are 5′7″
- are fat
- are thin
- don’t have any kids
- have too many kids
- are too old
- are too young
When you ask low-vibing questions, you’ll get low-vibing answers. So, you’ll get all those awful answers when you’re like, I did my best – why didn’t it work?
But when you look at what’s required, and you realize you didn’t do some of those things, then you can just be like, Alright, I’ll just do that next time. It’s that simple – and yet powerful strategy.
Talk to Us
You don’t have to do your best all the time. But when you look at what’s required, you will want to do your best in that area. Let’s see how fast I can skill up in this area! In that way, you’re taking life by the horns. And this is part of getting life to meet you on your terms!
So, stop doing your best! Just do what’s required, and your best will get better and better and better!
Book a free consult call with Team Prosperity and let us help you stop doing your best and start achieving your goals instead.
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