Make sure you are doing your best.

Somedays will be more challenging than the rest; mistakes will be made, and you might even lose sight of the big picture. Your goals might seem out of reach at the moment, but you have to take it a day, hour, mile, rep, lap, session, and keep showing up daily. It will get tough at some point, which is a sign that you are stretching yourself and moving out of your comfort zone. Giving up will seem like a viable option, but give all you’ve got, and you will eventually crack it. Good, better, best, never let it rest until good is better and better is best; make sure you are doing your best at any given moment, put in the effort and always remember “The best is yet to come,” and you can constantly better your best.

Always Do Your Best

There was a man who wanted to transcend his suffering, so he went to a Buddhist temple to find a Master to help him. He went to the Master and asked, “Master, if I meditate four hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”

The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate four hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in ten years. Thinking he could do better, the man then said, “Oh, Master, what if I meditated eight hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?” The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in twenty years.” “But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?” the man asked.

“The Master replied, “You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won’t enjoy your life. Do your best, and perhaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy.”

“When you always do your best, you take action. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. Most people do exactly the opposite: They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action. And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best.”

Self-Trust and Self-Forgiveness

The most complicated person to forgive is yourself. We can go into a spiral of self-loathing when we realize we stayed in a relationship too long, allowed too much abuse, or accepted less than we deserved. Then, when we choose to leave, there’s the guilt about walking away. If you’ve left a family relationship, know that you acted in your best interest after trying for perhaps years to make it work. Be compassionate with yourself for making a tough decision when you felt there was no other option.

You won’t always make the best decisions, but the more of them you make, the better a decision-maker you will become. Avoiding decisions keeps you in limbo and doesn’t improve your outcomes. The key to trusting yourself is offering yourself grace when things don’t go as planned, knowing that you acted in your best interests. Even some of the best decision-makers mess up from time to time. We see others as great decision-makers because we’re unaware of how many times they’ve failed.

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela.

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Renewal

Spring sneaks into our awareness from a distance as winter gusts its last winds and a few warm days sprinkle in between the cold ones. The days inch a little longer, and the shape of the shadow starts to change. Eventually, spring busts to life in our surrounding teem with transformation. Every sight and sound is a symbol of birth and renewal. The flow of the rivers, the chirps of the birds, the buds and blossoms of the plants, and the warming glow of the sun.

As we enter a new season, it is a great time to consider renewal. Like the arrival of a new year, a change of season is a chance to begin again, to say goodbye to anything we need to let go of and to say hello to anything we need to hold closer.

Music comes from an icicle as it melts to live again as spring water. – Henry Williamson.

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – You Can’t Refresh a Person

Not only do we expect our tech to be lightning-fast, but we also expect people to be. But we are not machines; we can’t be super speedy or efficient. We can’t refresh our operating system overnight. When we expect people to function like computers, we lose some of our humanity. While humans aren’t built to update overnight, we evolve over time. Technology is a tool to be used, and people aren’t a means to an end. We are wired for connection.

Daily Trip with Jeff Warren – Keep It Simple

Meditation eventually becomes less “this thing we do” to become more of who we are. The simplicity of meditation can inspire us to create more simplicity in other parts of our lives. Simplicity can help us get clear on what matters.

Podcast