Being the best isn't always a good goal to have. If being the best is less than what you're capable of, then you're failing to reach your potential by just being the best. Nick Saban coached arguably the best college football dynasty of all time, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. After winning games — most of the time blowing out the other team — Saban was still unhappy with his team's performance. Why? Because he wasn't satisfied with being the best. He wanted his teams to be their best. And their best was far greater, in Saban's mind, than the performance they put out on the field, so he demanded better, even in victory.
To become Fully Available, you must continually make progress toward becoming your best. Being better today than you were yesterday is the mindset of the world's most successful and effective people. It's time to identify those things you can improve upon and develop the necessary focus and intentionality to make progress in them.
You Cannot Be the Best at Everything
The desire to be the best at everything you do is a great thing, and I tremendously encourage everyone to strive in that direction. Having the attitude of "no one will outwork me, no one will outperform me" is how you use competitiveness to your advantage. But trying to be the best at everything is a distraction. You cannot be the best at everything.
To illustrate this in an obvious way: Usain Bolt holds the world record for the fastest 100m dash at 9.58 seconds. Lasha Talakhadze holds the world record for the heaviest Clean and Jerk at 267kg (589lbs). If you look up a picture of each of these two athletes, you'll notice glaring differences in their bodies. To be the fastest sprinter of all time means giving up, at the same time, on being the strongest weightlifter of all time. You cannot be the best at everything. It's impossible, and a waste of time to try.
You can, however, strive to be the best at everything you do. This doesn't mean trying to be both a sprinter and a weightlifter and striving to be the best at both. It means being selective in what you do. If you're a sprinter, strive to be the fastest in the world. If you're a weightlifter, strive to be the strongest. If you're a doctor, parent, teacher, priest, janitor, accountant, or realtor, strive to be the best in the world and use competitiveness as a driver for success. Striving to be the best is a great start, but certainly not the end. Being the best in the world is simply a result of a continued determination to be your best.
The World Needed Him to Be His Best
Martin Luther King Jr. is largely considered the most influential civil rights activist in American history. But being the best at bringing about social change was never Dr. King's goal. His goal was to give everything he had to bring equal rights to all people. He wanted to be his best for the cause, not the best. At the time, the best wasn't cutting it. To be just a little bit more influential, to bring just a little bit more justice to the black community, wouldn't have done a thing. The world didn't need Martin Luther King Jr. to be the best. The world needed him to be his best.
Dr. King didn't stop when small wins were made. He didn't stop when things got just a little bit better. He knew that America, and the world, needed someone who was above that. He dreamt of a country where all men and women are treated equally and fairly. He set the standard of how he would go about initiating this change, and he never wavered. King was not interested in small wins. He was interested in being his best, because that's what the world needed. It was only because he was determined to do things the rest of the world couldn't even have imagined that the world changed.
Your Best Is Always Enough
Being your best is all you ever need to worry about. Competitive environments are great because they tend to push people to the edge of their abilities, but if you always settle for just being better than the person next to you, you're probably selling yourself short. Use competition and your desire to be the best only if it helps you to be your best.
The world needs radical change. What the world needs is for you to be your best. We're all created to impact the world in our own unique way, and the only way to do that is to become your best. Your best is always enough.
