No One Else Knows

At the beginning of this year, I was in a session with my coach when she asked me “How do you respond to the idea that everyone is doing their best?”

“BULLSHIT!” I responded without even putting a second thought to it. When asked to explain further, I responded that I didn’t always do my best and therefore no one else could be either.

Just a few months later, the pandemic hit and it had a tremendous impact on my work and those that I work with. I found myself reminding others to extend grace and patience as everyone is doing the best that they can. What an amazing transition to make in a very short period of time!

The thing that I am discovering is how much my perfectionism changes my perspective and expectation of others…. and myself. My limiting belief was that because I wasn’t doing THE best (ahem…. perfect) then I wasn’t doing MY best.

One’s best in any given moment is impacted by a number of factors- personal perspective, knowledge or clarity on the current situation, emotional awareness, “hijacked” position (hungry, angry, lonely, tired), to name a few.

In doing some reading, I came across the following quote:

The best advice I've ever received is, 'No one else knows what they're doing either.’
-Ricky Gervais

It is a beautiful reminder that the patience and grace that we extend to others is just as necessary to extend to oneself.

We are just doing the best we can with what we know at the time.

And that is good enough.