Building to Your Best

[00:00:20] Welcome to another episode of What Else You Got with Mitch and Margo. I'm Mitch, she's Margo. What else you got today? What else do I have? Hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, some days it just feels like I'm not doing my best. How do you gauge if you're doing your best or not? Well, I've been working on changing what I use to measure doing my best. There was actually a video I saw,

[00:00:48] or actually there's been a couple videos, basically says that your best is what you can do without hurting yourself or mentally hurting yourself, physically hurting yourself. It's making the most out of what you can do without making it where you can't do more. Well, and I have an opinion on the topic, but I like this topic because I know lots of

[00:01:18] people who say, I just didn't do my best today, or I just didn't do my best on the test, or I just didn't do my best giving a speech. But in fact, you did do your best. Regardless of the outcome, you did your best. But people will argue, no, I could have done better. Well, maybe on a different day you could have done better. But for this particular day and time, in this spectrum,

[00:01:44] you know, timeline, you did your best. And sometimes, especially perfectionists, recovering perfectionists here. Hey, me too. Ah, sometimes perfectionists expect themselves to hold such a high standard that anytime that standard's not met, then we are harsh on ourselves and say, I didn't do my best.

[00:02:09] But what I'm trying to retreat, that's a new word, retreat, retrain, reteach, my brain is to know that whatever I'm doing in the moment, it is the best I can do. So even if it means I need to go take a nap, taking a nap might be the best I can do in that moment. Or walking away from a conversation might be

[00:02:34] the best I can do in that moment. As long as I am pointed in the right direction, basically in life, and as long as I am striving, and I'm diligent, then whatever I'm doing in this moment is the best that I'm capable of in this moment. So instead of defining best, let's go down the defining not

[00:02:58] the best. Because going back to taking a test, not the best is putting C for every answer. Not your best with going to work is not going to work. Well, with a major caveat of sometimes it's best not to go to work. But not doing your best on a project at work is sitting staring at the screen

[00:03:25] for six weeks and saying I did my best. That's not your best. I agree. But because sometimes defining what not the best is better than defining what best is because like you said, and like I said, recovering perfectionist, and it's one of those that there's a something I've been working on is 80% done by someone else is awesome because it's 80%

[00:03:52] you didn't have to do. And so yes, I like to have a once and done, but if I can do 180%, that's great versus just 100%. And so I've been trying to accept other people's best as replacement for some of my time so that I'm able to go farther, which that's really hard, especially when you go

[00:04:14] back and go, you missed a spot. Yeah, that's, that's even harder when you know what your 100% perfectionistic best is. And then you look at something someone else has done, and you immediately think of all the ways you could have should have would have done it better. That can't be healthy.

[00:04:38] Um, because maybe in our own selfish perspectives, egotistical perspectives, we think we could do something better, or correctly, or perfect. Uh, who are, who are we to actually judge? I'm not sure I, you know, sometimes it is appropriate for me to make a judgment call. Uh, it is hard for me to accept

[00:05:06] a lower quality from someone else that I know is capable of doing better and lower quality. It's hard when I know how it could have, should have would have been done if I had done it. So there's ego involved, there's pride involved, there's perfectionism involved. Doing your best is a hard

[00:05:29] topic. And also doing your best at something you've never done before is very hard to gauge. Because this last week, I got to do something which I did my best at. Yes, I made a couple of mistakes, but I think I accommodated for those mistakes reasonably, where I put a roof on a shed. Oh, nice job. And, and it's one of those that, yeah, my lines aren't probably completely straight.

[00:05:55] Yeah. Uh, I'm expecting a leak at some point, but at the same time, it's one of those that I hopped up there and I want to give it a shot. And I think I did pretty good, uh, just cause it was something new I was trying and I did my best at it. Well, and that's another, that's another issue with perfectionists is oftentimes, and I'm speaking from a place of experience. Oftentimes a perfectionist

[00:06:23] will not want to try something new because we know that perfection is probably not achievable in the first attempt. And so why bother doing something if you can't do it beautifully, wonderfully, perfectly. And so I know it serves as a huge roadblock to a lot of perfectionists. Yeah, that's definitely one of the things I have problems with is starting something,

[00:06:49] knowing it's naturally going to be a failed attempt, which at the same time, failed attempt and best attempt are sometimes the same thing. And it's one of those that, cause like, uh, the shed, I'm looking at putting a ramp, uh, to get stuff up into it. And I literally spent two hours designing a ramp and I'm going, I have no clue what I'm actually doing. And I won't know until I start

[00:07:14] doing it. And when I'm done, I'll realize what could have done better, but it goes back to perfectionists like to guarantee everything, but that's where your free whimsical friends that just jump in and seem to get everything right. It's cause they accepted failure as an option, but they're willing to try. And because they've tried a lot of things, they failed at a lot of things,

[00:07:41] they're good at a lot of things. And so it's a detriment of the perfectionist because they don't want to try. It's the benefit of the whimsical person because they tried, which goes back to a story of a college professor for a pottery class. Uh, half the class, uh, was told to make as many, uh, pottery as they can, and they'll be, uh, graded on their last one. Half the class was graded on,

[00:08:07] uh, just doing their perfect one at the end. And the ones who did more, uh, had the practice, the experience where they're able to have the experience where they're able to produce the best as the ones who sat, studied, designed, and tried. They didn't have the hands-on experience to do it the best. And so sometimes it's just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks

[00:08:32] is the best that you can do. Well, and one of my favorite books is The Artist's Way. And I believe in there that it talks about the concept of giving yourself permission to fail or permission to make ugly art first. And I know that there's a whole bunch of online content producers that promote the concept of creating ugly art, because if you can give yourself permission to create ugly art,

[00:08:57] if you can give yourself permission to, uh, gloriously fail on your first round of attempts, that's where you learn essential skills to become better. And how will you ever become your best if you don't allow yourself the opportunity to experiment with failure first? And I can see you've got something, but let me tell you one more thing. One of the things I love most about quilting is the

[00:09:25] concept of the Amish quilt. So in Amish quilting, they believe that no quilt should be perfect because only God is perfect. And if you're striving for perfection in your quilts and apologies to Amish culture, if I've misrepresented it all here, but my understanding is that if you create a perfect

[00:09:50] quilt, you're insulting God, you're insulting God because only God is perfect. And so Amish will intentionally embed a flaw into their quilting so that it is intentionally not perfect. And so while their best may be to create a perfect quilt, they intentionally make it so it is not perfect.

[00:10:11] And so I think if we want to be creators of anything, art, engineering, anything, we need to allow ourselves permission to have a round of failures first to learn from, and then we can grow and we can create better art. What are you wanting to show us there? Well, I was going to start with a segue of one reason why I like 3D printing is because it's part of the rapid development fail fast

[00:10:41] mentality, which fail fast is also in software engineering and probably a couple other things where you intentionally go quickly and you test regularly so you can fail quickly so you can adjust. And I failed in multiple attempts because I've got this little box. Okay. The first one's kind of obvious. I ran out of filament, so I changed colors, which to me doesn't bother me. And then second, I got the sizing of the boxes wrong, which yeah, they look correct, but, and

[00:11:11] some of them are correct. What's wrong about it? Well, some of them are just barely too short for what I intend to stick in it. Some of them aren't quite the right spacing for what I intend to stick in it. And it was an attempt to get everything to fit into one nice box. But as I was trying to figure out how to put this together, I realized that the correct solution is not an all-in-one box, but small trays, because the other problem is it's too tall for some of this stuff. So it's too short

[00:11:39] and too tall at the same time. And also just because I was playing with it, there's a little nick in it from where the filament changed, where it didn't quite heat correctly. And so just tons of little flaws in it. But it gave me enough of the testing to see how my different ideas would work, which it took eight hours to print this. So an eight hour fail, but at the same time, I'm sure I'll be able to

[00:12:08] reuse it for something else. But it's just one of those that it gave me enough idea on how to make smaller trays to fit into a different box to achieve the same objective of putting a bunch of supplies in one spot. I just changed what form factor it was, and it worked so much better. And yes, it still took eight hours to print, but it made it where by designing multiple things and

[00:12:33] failing quickly, I was able to try stuff and failing quickly is relative. Because I also have these, which was for a project, and these have the whole too big. It's not the right proportion. It doesn't fit the stuff. I actually have another prototype printed off behind me, which I don't think anyone can see, but it was to test if I had the sizing right. And notice they're low profile. The full box is actually

[00:12:59] taller, but it's a design quick design to fail quickly so that you're able to build quickly. And the idea of failing fast is hard for a perfectionist. But once you get past the idea of failure is part of the process making good, you want to fail as quickly as possible so that you can achieve the best. Yeah, so how can yeah. I don't even know where to go from there. Do we talk about

[00:13:27] perfectionism? Or do we talk about people striving to do their best? Is diligence good enough? Is striving good enough? At what point do you say what I accomplished today was good enough? And I'm content that I did my best? That's a great question, because I've got another project I'm working on that a couple hours ago, I'm saying, I said, you know what, I'm done for the day. Because I could

[00:13:55] tell my exhaustion was getting high enough. I knew if I continued, I would make more errors. Even though yes, I still could keep doing it. And considering I've got AI tools doing most of the work, I don't have to do a lot. But it really comes down to I can continue and exhaust myself, or I can stop rejuvenate, so that when I started up again, I'm able to continue. Plus also, I've

[00:14:20] already put in far too many hours of trying to be productive today. And so it's just a mixture of knowing what your pattern is. Because like Mondays, I usually end up working longer just because I am fresh, I can get further. And I know like Thursday, Friday, I'll hit a wall, and I'm just done. And then there's other weeks that Tuesday and Thursdays are just super slow. And whether that's

[00:14:43] because I'm mentally slow, or just because nothing else is happening. I try to do what I can where I can, so I can shift my balance in other places as needed. So I had briefly mentioned ugly art. And it was something that I had seen online. And the concept was, you put out paper on like the surface

[00:15:08] of a table, or you can do it outside. And it's a somatic therapy technique, where you're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners,

[00:15:37] see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. You just squeeze paint all over the place. And then you get in there with your whole arms. And so you feel it on your body, feel it in your fingertips and your fingernails, and then you let it dry. And then you tear it. And you try to create the ugly art into something

[00:16:05] pretty. I don't know that I ever liked the ugly art. So here's my, this is my feelings, my emotions and feelings sketchbook. So I just went to the store, you know, and bought a blank sketchbook. And then the goal was to try to do this ugly art. But for me, it didn't work that great. But I'm going to show you a couple of things. So this was where I did the squishing

[00:16:31] paint and then tear it apart and try to recreate it into something. I tried it multiple times as a way to express my emotions and get it out. But it just really never worked really well for me. And then part of it started to click because, you know, in therapy, I'm working on my negative

[00:16:57] self-talk. And so I realized it wasn't working for me because it was still negative self-talk. I was calling it ugly. And so something clicked right around that same time I was introduced to Zentangles. And that's when I realized it doesn't have to be ugly to help me process my emotions. And so

[00:17:20] this is where I switched from the ugly art over to Zentangles because Zentangles can be really, really cool and really pretty and still help you process emotions. So a couple of my early Zentangles. And but the thing is, I gave myself permission to let it be ugly. It was okay if it was ugly,

[00:17:45] but it didn't have to be. And so processing my emotions in Zentangles, it has really, really helped me. And some of these have turned out to be really cool. But another thing that I've done with it is I've also created gratitude pages. So this is a Zentangle and a gratitude page. And so it allows me the

[00:18:12] opportunity to come in and notate things that I'm grateful for. But also the thing that actually made me come and grab this book is because I saw this on social media, I haven't finished coloring it in or anything. But you were talking about, um, did I do my best today? And so I just, as a recovering

[00:18:39] perfectionist, oftentimes, I will lay in bed at night and think, Oh, I forgot to do this. Oh, I wish I hadn't said that or, Oh, I wish I would have done this better. Well, this list is such a great list. It's a great thing to think it's so it's called and I don't remember the source, but I got it. I follow, you know, lots of mental health people on social media. And so it's a list of nightly

[00:19:02] reminders. And so it's a list that you can review before bed to convince your brain that I did, in fact, do enough today. I did my best. It was enough. So I'm just going to read some of these off to you. So nightly reminders. Today is complete. I did enough. One moment does not define me.

[00:19:28] My brain can rest now. I don't need to solve tomorrow, tonight. My body is safe. If I am allowed to grow without urgency, the life I want is built through small aligned decisions. So in the concept of did I do my best? Well, if we think about those small aligned decisions,

[00:19:57] I think if we strive in those moments to do our best to make sure those small decisions are aligned with our ultimate goals, then I think we can allow ourselves to rest at the end of the day, knowing that no matter the outcome, we in fact did our best. Yeah. And there's quite a few things that you talked about that is super awesome because you

[00:20:24] talked about how you started with a concept that you didn't quite agree with, with the ugly art, but then as you were doing it, you were able to transition into something that you preferred. And then once you got into that, then you're able to expand it further into even more. And you're expanding it one more because it starts with a fail attempt at something, which turned into a okay attempt at something different, which turned into your preferred attempt. And it really just comes down

[00:20:53] to failure is sometimes the best gateway to your success. Yeah. And I don't tear out the pages as much as I dislike the first, I don't know, five or 10 pages. I'm not letting myself tear them out because it shows my progression. It shows where I started, how it morphed and what it's becoming. And even if I create something that I think actually is really ugly, I'm leaving it in there because it's

[00:21:22] part of my process. It's part of me exploring my emotions, focusing long enough on the paper to explore that emotion fully. It's giving me an opportunity to name precisely the emotion and work through it. Yeah. And some of the bigger companies in the world today started out as failures because the one that comes to mind that I just love one, because I can remember it in two,

[00:21:52] actually like it. Slack. So Slack, the office messaging app, which you can also use it as a free individual. They started out, I want to say it was as a game development company or a software development company that they just couldn't sell their product. And so that part of the company failed. And as they were going through, they realized, Hey, we have this really phenomenal

[00:22:18] internal messaging tool. Let's see if we can sell that instead. And so that failure turned into one of the best messaging apps for productivity. And it's just super awesome. And like KFC, I think Colonel Sanders, I want to say it was like 63 before he started doing KFC. He was old. He was a young chicken.

[00:22:43] He wasn't the spring chicken. Yeah, that one. And then adjacent to all that. One of the things that you hit a couple of times was when your affirmations was I am enough. And so, yes, I did see the Barbie movie. And the one thing I did like, and it was Ken enough. Ken enough. Just because Ken was trying

[00:23:07] to figure out where he fit into Barbie's big adventure, where she ran off and what's Ken without Barbie. But so Ken tried a couple different things. And then he found that he is enough just to exist. I kid you not. You said the I am enough. I just barely bought this at the store today. It says

[00:23:31] I am enough. I'm not usually a journaler. But I am so excited to go on this week long adventure in less than two weeks now called Mountain Trek. And I want to be able to take a journal that I can write down some thoughts as I go through this adventure. And it's it's a little heavier than I

[00:23:58] really wanted to take. But I just thought that it seemed appropriate. And so yeah, sometimes it's hard to say I am enough just the way I am without making any changes without without just that without making any changes. Right now in this very moment, I am enough. Do you think you're enough?

[00:24:27] Some days more than others. I'm definitely working on that. And just one personal funny that I thought of when you're saying the journals a little heavier than you would like. It's a little heavier than you would like, but it'll help lighten your load. That was really good. That was really good.

[00:24:57] Thanks, Mitch. Uh huh. You are the best. I don't know if you've done your best today, but you are the best. Oh, shucks. But yeah, with just being enough, it's definitely tricky some days more than others. But it's one of those that it really comes down to, am I putting in a fair shake at trying to

[00:25:24] succeed? Then yes. And when I say fair shake it, because sometimes it's a sit around and just take the day off so that you can get the fair shake tomorrow. Because if you do two half shakes, it's not worth it anywhere close to a full shake. So just trying to balance your ability to give enough to be enough. Well, and I'm sure you've heard the term absenteeism. Have you heard of the

[00:25:50] term presenteeism? No, but I've also heard of quiet quitting. Oh, interesting. So yeah, absenteeism is when you miss too much work, right? Presenteeism, I'm not sure I'm saying it right, is when you show up to work, but you get nothing done. And so are you doing your best? If just showing

[00:26:14] up is doing your best, occasionally, that's probably fine. But if you regularly just show up and warm a seat, I don't know that you're doing your best. There is one concept as specifically in like a personal improvement with the gym, where if you can't convince yourself to go into the gym, you can at least convince yourself to go to the gym and sit in the parking lot. And then as you sit

[00:26:43] there, you're eventually going to go, well, this is a waste of time. I should just go in. And just by the fact of showing up is slow progression towards where you're going. That is the case in some places. So your presentism fits into the quiet quitting where you warm a seat because you don't feel valued enough to contribute. And so basically you quit, but you're not quitting and you're waiting to be

[00:27:09] fired because then basically you're hitting the pure minimums. And in some cases that may be your best because home life may be all over the place. Or if you are just not happy with it, what are you doing to improve your best? So you can give your best without giving your all. And because yeah, you can be at

[00:27:34] work, but why sit somewhere that drains you when you, uh, two seats over is somewhere that you can thrive. Maybe it has something to do with self-awareness. Maybe it has something to do with knowing how to set goals, knowing how to achieve goals, how, knowing how to define what your goals are, what it is you actually want.

[00:28:00] I would actually take it one step in a slightly different direction of, uh, it comes down to how you regulate yourself. Uh, and I say it that way because a lot of the times when you feel burnt out, uh, or you're not doing enough, it's because you're regulated at a point where you think absolute

[00:28:24] perfectionism is what you're shooting for. And so you spend all your emotional strength stressing about failing when, if you're able to regulate your performance to this is the bar I need to hit. You're not stressing because the bar is not unobtainable. It's achievable. And then you're able to transfer at that stressed, uh, effort into performance effort, which then helps you re-regulate

[00:28:51] other parts of your life. And so where are you aiming? Uh, cause if you're aiming shoot for the, uh, shoot for the moon and you land among the stars, well, is that really the best place to aim? Cause if you end up next to a star, you'll combust, but, but it really just comes down to, are you aiming there because someone told you to aim there? Are you aiming there because you think that's the objective or are you aiming there because that is where you're supposed to be pointed?

[00:29:23] Yeah. And who's defining, who's defining where you should be aiming? Oh, that's a whole nother topic. Maybe we should save that for the next podcast. Who's defining your goals. Are you defining your goals or are you letting someone else defining your goals or are you just moving through the life with the ebbs and flows that the world pushes you in? Ooh. That first part with, uh, who's defining your goals. I can see that being a newspaper frontline

[00:29:52] headline or front page headline. There we go. Well, then everybody will have to come back for the next episode. Are you going to write that down? Make sure we cover that in our next episode. Yes, I will. Who is defining your goals? That's a good one. All right. Well, Mitch, what else you got for today? I think that's it. Cause I think who's defining goals is our next one. That's right. So everybody come on back. We're defining your goal to come on back

[00:30:20] and listen as we chit chat about defining goals. In the meantime, click the things, click the likes, click the bookmarks, click the share, click it all, follow comment. And we'll see you next time on what else you got with Mitch and Mario.

[00:30:36] You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into

[00:31:12] podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com.