How to Be the Best at Whatever You Do

Posted on October 7, 2008

How to Be the Best at Whatever You Do

I have a personal guiding principle to, “always do my best,” but lately I realize that “the best you can do” is relative. How can I be the best that I can, if I didn’t know that there were 10 more steps to do after I thought I was done. The realization came to me while feeling like I was operating at maximum capacity, then I came across someone operating three times more than I was. So I hit the drawing board and came up with a plan to make sure I was always operating at my very best.

In order to Be the Best you should…

Ask Yourself the Following Questions
It is important to know what the general requirements are for being the best in a field or at whatever you do. These questions should give you a starting point for pretty much anything you want to start.

• How can I be the best at what I am doing?
• How do I know that I have done the best that I can?
• At what point can I be confident that I have done my best?
• Should I always take it one-step further? (Yes)
• Where do I start?

Do Your Homework
What is required to get the job done very well? Has it been done before? You need to know if there is a road already paved for your success or if you have to create the road. Your homework includes, finding someone who has succeeded at achieving goals similar to yours. Make a list of how he/she did it, individualize these steps to work in your situation, then take it a step further.

Differentiate Yourself
You might not want to reinvent the wheel, or may be you do, but you want your wheel to stand out from the crowd. How can you differentiate yourself? How will you make your product different from of others out there? Innovation is the key word here. You have to be different and stand out when you go for a job interview. You have to be different and stand out when you have your own business. You have to be different and stand out to attract people to you. Differentiation is the way you will market yourself. This is how people will know you are the bests.

Have a Plan
A plan is a simple roadmap to keep you on track. If you have done steps one, two, and three you should have an outline of what you need to do to be the best at what you do. Collect all the data you can find on what you want to do, how you want to do it and when you want to accomplish your goal. Organize your plan, so you can track your progress. A plan you can track means that you set milestones, for example getting your masters degree. A milestone would be passing your GMAT exams, another milestone would sending out your applications, a great milestone would be getting accepted into the college of your choice. You get the picture set small goals so you have a sense of accomplishment, they may be small but they are required to get you to your ultimate goal.

Remember you are trying to be your best here, your plan needs to be bold and brazen people need to see you coming but most important you need to see yourself as the best.

Get Yourself a Work Ethic
You will develop a good work ethic when you hold yourself to a higher standard. I did not know just how important working hard and doing my best was to me until I discovered that I was not capable of producing at a lower level and be happy. This work ethic, I live with sometimes to my detriment, because I have worked myself to the bone. Now I find it is all about finding a balance and putting myself in the equation. You need time to rest, you need to know when to call it quits and most important you need to make sure no one is taking advantage of you. A work ethic gets you to work on time not because you want to score points with the boss but because it makes you feel good about yourself. You want to be the best that you can be not for the recognition but because it is something of value to you. Armed with strong ethics the sky is the limit.

Develop a “Can Do” Attitude
Do look at things and see what you cannot do or do you look at life and see what you can. There is always a way to get something done, sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is not. The point is to make sure the first thing that comes to mind is how can I make this work? You will get to a solution faster if you first think this way.

Focus
Get rid of distractions. Don’t Try to Be the Best at Everything, it is easier to be the best at 5 things than it is to be the best at 25 things. It is easier to be the best at one thing that it is to be at five things. In many cases, you can work your way up to 25, (never say never). When you are juggling too many things at once you end up not completing anything.

Tenacity
You cannot give up without trying, that is the whole point of trying to be the best. You need perseverance, you cannot quit after a few tries. Success is a by-product of hard work. This is why you have to do what you love, when you do what you love it doesn’t seem like hard work. When you do what you love you are willing to keep trying until you succeed.

Being the best that you can be starts with doing your homework. You have to know what you need to do to be the best before you embark on this endeavor. Once you know where you are going, getting there depends on your following your action plan, getting your work done well and reaping the benefits.

It may all sound easy and perhaps it is, however, being the best is a goal that starts with you changing your habits and working hard.

photo credit: Hamed Saber