Our Natural Best
This is a repost of the original from my previous blog at https://world.hey.com/jaran.flaath
Our natural best is the performance we are able to muster at any particular point in time, in an environment of psychological safety and free of friction.
My natural best will be different today than what it was yesterday. It may be due to better sleep and feeling full of energy, or perhaps I have been up several times during the night with sick kids and I feel slow and far from at my best.
My natural best will be different today than it was five years ago. Life is evolving and so is our natural best. You get older, and your motivations and priorities change. You get married, have kids. Everything that is part of your life will impact your natural best. The sooner you realise, accept and work with that, your life and mental capacity is going to get a boost.
Enabling yourself and those around you to focus on delivering at their natural best should be top priority. Do not aim for performing, or require performance, at a level completely disconnected from our natural human abilities – losing sight of what's important in life along the way.
Do not compare your natural best to that of others. It will differ. It will fluctuate. It doesn't matter. As long as you're able – and allowed – to perform at your natural best, that is where you will produce the best output. Anything else is unsustainable.
The concept of your natural best applies not only to work, but to every other part of life as well. Whether it's workout, parenting or relationships. You will never manage to perform at 100% in every area of life for as long as you live. Give yourself some slack when you need it, use excess energy to charge forward when it's available. You'll be happier, and those around you will not go around wondering when you'll break down and collapse.
Psychological safety is key to achieving this. If I have the safety to be me today, I will be able to deliver my natural best. Allow yourself and those around you to be humans. To have bad days and good. To deliver exceptionally one day and mediocre the next. This is how we were made and are supposed to function. That is our natural best.