The Real Meaning of Doing Your Best

One of the Four Agreements in Miguel Ruiz' book is "Always do your best" and this can be a tricky agreement because it tunes with the programming we bring from when we are children that are always trying to do the best, win in competitions, do everything perfect, and please everyone in our lives. As we grow up, we realize that "doing our best" may be something we don't need to do to gain anyone's validation or appreciation but something that we do for ourselves. The issue is that our self critic is much worse than any other person in this world, we are our worst enemy because many times we want to do things perfectly and we want to be the best but we don't realize that doing that kills our spirit or makes us angry or depress. It is time for us to understand the real meaning of "doing your best" and knowing that your best my be different from one day to the next. What is your best today may not be your best tomorrow and we need to learn to accept and love ourselves just the way we are knowing that we always strive to do our best but also accepting that the parameter to which we measure our best changes as we change and changes as we cycle.

As one friend called me, I am the "Dot Connecting Mistress" so while reading the book Optimized woman, I couldn't help but connect some dots. It is no wonder why so many women are unhappy, angry and depress in today's world. We strive to live as a man forgetting that we are women. We try to fit the linear thinking while going in spirals and cycles. We try to conform to society's social rules that talk about deadlines and projects in a day to day way instead of working with our cycles and honoring that there will be times when we need to go within and we do not want to be energetic and all wired while there will be other times when we are full of energy and those periods happen within one month. No wonder why women are suffering more heart attacks than men since we enter the workforce and try to become men. We try to do what men do but also do what we did before. We take care of the house, the kids, the bills, and on top of that, we also work eight hours a day if not more, and we don't even have the luxury to honor our cycles. The world wants us to ignore our periods, the world wants us to see that our period is one spot in the month that usually is uncomfortable and dirty but I say, our period is just one part of a wonderful and powerful cycle and it is time for us to teach the world that not everything needs to be on a straight line. We do not need to become men, we don't need to forget what makes us women because that is what gives us power. It is time to teach the world that sometimes spiraling is as good as going straight and sometimes it is even better.

When society says be like a man, play the corporate game, forget who you are, adjust, be aggressive, I say we show the world that it is not necessary for all of us to be men. We can be women and cycle because our cycles bring creativity, bring beauty, bring fertility, and bring abundance. If they say we are PMS, I say "Ashe - try do what I do, as effective as I do it and then we'll talk about it." It is hard not to be angry or upset when we live in a world that does not honor us women but instead tries to make us fit in a role where we don't belong. It is time to claim our powers, it is time to accept that we are always doing our best and honor our cycles so we can be happier and more empowered women. Let's show the world that spirals are as good as lines and that we are proud to be different. We are proud to be women.

Blessings!