Do your best
A reframing of 'do your best'
My daughter finishes her A Level exams today. Let's just say she can't wait to get them over and done with. She has worked incredibly hard over the last month or so; in fact over the last two years.
Before some of the exams she has been nervous and worried about the questions that will come up. I will tell her that all she can do is to "do her best". Both my kids will have lost count of the number of times I have told them that.
However I came across an article that extended this in the work environment where you are not the only person who could be involved in a task:
Too often I see someone who is responsible for accomplishing an important goal doing the best they can in the face of immense odds. It may sound counterintuitive, but the mandate of such a job is not to “do the best you can.” It is to get it done. And if the way to get it done is to ask for help, then that’s what you should do.
I like the idea that this now becomes "do your best" or "do our best" where "best" is getting it done. Sometimes we need to ask for help.
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