Always Do Your Best

In this episode, Dr. Gina discusses Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements. More specifically, we discuss the importance of always doing your best.Dr. Gina discusses what doing our best looks like by detaching from outcomes and especially from judgments about how we perform on a day-to-day basis. She reiterates the importance of being present, self-compassion, & learning from our mistakes. Dr. Gina provides various examples of how we can do our best in our relationships and with our children.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hi,

Everybody.

Hi,

Ben.

Hey,

Gina.

How are you?

I'm good,

As usual.

That's good.

I'm glad that you're always good.

That's really nice.

You know why I think that is?

No.

Because you're always,

No matter what's going on,

No matter what the day is,

You're always giving it your all.

You're always doing your best.

Look at that.

And that is my segue into,

Not the smoothest of segues,

But my segue into today,

Our final installation of our series on the Four Agreements.

The Four Agreements obviously is a best-selling book by Don Miguel Ruiz.

It's fantastic.

You can find a link to it on Amazon in our description below in the show notes.

It's a wonderful book.

I know every episode we've done this,

But if people haven't listened to the other three episodes,

They are be impeccable with your word and don't make assumptions.

What's the other one?

I can't think of the other one off the top of my head.

Don't take anything personally.

There it is.

So don't take anything personally.

Don't make assumptions.

Be impeccable with your word.

And here we are,

Always do your best.

Before we get into it,

Why are we covering the Four Agreements?

We're covering the Four Agreements because they're basic principles that I think if we could apply in our everyday life,

Our relationships would be a lot better.

They'd run smoother.

Less conflict.

And these are principles that are so simple,

We could teach them to little children.

As maybe we well should.

And this is one that I try to teach Ali's little guy,

Always do your best.

It's very important.

Tell us why.

It's why so that you can't,

It's sorry,

It's important because it's a way to be authentic.

I think to nurture your self-esteem,

To nurture relationships with others.

It allows you to be present and be your best self,

Basically.

So I think that's why it's another important factor.

And it doesn't mean overdo it,

Go break your back,

Become a workaholic.

And go stop saying no to people.

I think it's literally respecting yourself in the moment,

Checking in,

How you're doing and do your best with what you have in this moment.

And that way you don't live with regrets.

Yeah.

I was reading,

I was going through a mutual friend's book last night and we were talking about this subject.

And we talked a lot about how doing your best looks different every day.

Some days your best is going to be phenomenal.

It's going to be the peak of what you can do.

You're going to put out the best content for whatever it is that you do.

If you're a writer,

Some days you're going to nail it.

You're going to write 15,

50 pages,

Whatever it is,

Whatever is a great day for you.

Some days you're going to nail it.

Other days you're going to sit there and you're going to try and maybe you'll get 50 words out.

But if you put in that effort that day,

Then you can be proud of that.

Yeah.

And I think it's connected to being non-judgmental.

Basically,

So doing your best is not equal doing good,

Doing bad,

Doing poorly.

I think it's just what you said,

Do your best with what you have that day.

So same thing with parenting.

When you know better,

Do better.

So you're going to make mistakes as a parent,

As a partner,

A spouse,

An employee.

So always do your best with what you know and when you have and when you know better,

Then you can course correct.

And sometimes doing your best.

And I experienced it on my month off.

I had this list of 20 things I wanted to do during my month off and I probably did none of them.

And I would check in and go,

Do I feel like cleaning up the basement from all the toys or whatever?

No,

I want to go read a book.

So I did my best in self-care that day.

So doing your best is not,

There's not a qualifier of good or bad attached to it.

It's literally checking in,

Not overdoing it,

Staying present and taking action accordingly.

Yeah.

Yep.

And you know what your best is,

Just because you didn't clean the basement that day doesn't mean that you failed.

Exactly.

You know,

Like,

The aspect of this vacation,

This month off for you was rest and relaxation to rejuvenate yourself,

You know,

All of that stuff.

And at some point during that,

Cleaning the basement out is a good idea.

It'll make you feel good.

If that's not what you needed to do that day,

That's not what you needed to do that day.

Exactly.

You know,

Reading the book was what you needed to do that day.

There's a lot of people out there,

Myself included,

That would get mad at myself for not reading the book,

You know,

Because,

But anyway,

Regardless,

Like,

Exactly,

Like the priorities are what they are,

You know.

But whatever.

Do you think that it's not about what you do,

It's how you do it?

Yeah,

I think it's how you do it,

The intention.

And also,

Again,

Being authentic with yourself and with others and not being attached to any outcome.

So being,

Always do your best,

Regardless of how people react to you.

So you're doing it just to do your best,

Not so people will like you or not so people won't judge you.

Doing your best is just being you and doing what you need to do without being attached to the outcome of it.

And trusting whatever happens,

Happens and being an acceptance of the outcome.

Being detached from it.

I love,

Are you,

This might be a weird metaphor to use or story to use on this show,

But there was a UCLA basketball coach,

Very,

Very famous.

His name is John Wooten.

And he won more national championships in a period of time than anybody.

And he did it with teams,

You know,

And it wasn't that he had the like the star athlete or anything,

But he practiced and preached and taught all of his guys to do everything that they did the best that they could in that moment.

And at basketball practice,

Instead of practicing,

You know,

Shooting hoops and plays and stuff at first,

He literally like taught them how to tie their shoes again.

You know,

Because he,

Yeah,

That's why I thought that he had to basketball terminology,

But it's,

He's very like well regarded in the spiritual community because,

Because of these like tenants of success that he did and like,

You know,

Grown men coming back to him 60 years later who went on to success in all sorts of other fields that weren't basketball because not every basketball player in college is going to make it to the NBA.

But all of these people that came back and said,

You know,

Coach,

You taught me how to be in the moment and do whatever I was doing to the best of my ability at that time.

And it started with like,

This is how you tie your shoe.

This is how you put your,

Put your pants on.

You know what I mean?

Like if you're in that moment,

Do it to the best of your ability.

And I think that that's what the genesis,

What the basic,

What the baseline level of this agreement means,

You know,

Whatever.

You talk about being present last episode,

You said you wanted to,

You didn't want to sound like a broken record,

But the show's about mindfulness.

Exactly.

You know,

It's all about being present.

So do you,

I don't know what he talked about to that,

To that extent,

I guess.

Sorry.

Yeah,

So it's,

If you're not present or mindful of your actions,

Your choices,

The way you think,

You will act or behave in a,

Like you're sleepwalking basically.

So being mindful is waking up,

Noticing around you,

Not being stuck in your head in a story.

You know,

Brene Brown talks a lot about it.

I'm making up the story that,

Well,

Not,

It's realize I am making up a story.

And if we connected to doing your best,

If you're present,

You can actually notice,

Am I doing my best?

So an easy example,

Let's say you're a parent of a young kid and three,

Four year old needs your attention and you're on your cell phone and caressing your child while on your cell phone.

Well,

Is that the best you can do?

So you gotta go,

Yeah,

Let me put this phone aside and look at my child and yeah,

I love you and be present.

Put the phone aside because if you're not doing your best and do you see how it's a simple gesture and what a big difference it can make where one is really less than your best.

And the other one is you are your best self,

You're present to your child,

You've put down your phone because you know what?

Your phone can wait.

This moment with your child will soon be gone because of the concept of impermanence.

Nothing lasts.

Everything dies.

So what's more important,

Your child or your phone?

Facebook can wait,

YouTube can wait,

But every second you're with your child,

It can't really wait.

They need your presence.

So let's dive head first into that because I think doing your best as a parent is a whole other set of worms compared to doing your best as an individual.

It's the classic story of the first few years of a child's life.

You sort of maybe lose yourself,

You lose your own identity.

These are the things that I feel like are commonplace things that are talked about.

Like not doing mothers that don't find time enough for themselves or they don't.

And I feel like there's a lot of pressure put on both moms and dads to be doing their best as a parent and be doing their best in their relationship and be doing their best with work.

How do you do your best and what is doing your best in all of those things when you become a parent and life goes from 0 to 120 in a minute?

So I think doing your best as a parent and regardless if you're a mom or dad,

First you need to take care of you.

So taking care of you will change with the age of your child.

So with a newborn,

For sure you're going to have sleepless nights.

Your sleep will be woken up every two,

Three hours.

So you're going to need to up the self-care.

It will look different,

Meaning nap when your baby is napping.

But the commonality,

To be able to do your best as a parent,

You need to work from a full tank,

Not an empty tank.

So depending on the age of the child,

You'll adjust accordingly.

So you'll rest,

You'll eat well,

You'll exercise and exercising might not mean going to the gym.

It could just be walk with the stroller or walk while carrying your baby.

But you do your best by taking care of you first and adjusting to the child's developmental stage and then parenting with presence is the best way to doing your best.

So combining parenting with presence with conscious parenting,

If you look at the work of Dr.

Shefaly,

So what you can do your best if you're self-aware.

If I'm reacting to my kid,

What is mine and what is my child?

What is it me being triggered and I need to put my stuff aside so I can respond to my child and his or her needs as opposed to my needs because when they're little,

They don't have the impulse control that we have when we're older.

So doing your best will vary with the developmental stage of your child.

So kids are not born with a manual.

It's the hardest job in the world,

Yet no one gets training for it.

So I think it's each parent's responsibility to educate themselves about the developmental stages of children,

What they need,

What they don't need because we put a lot on them.

And at the same time,

We coddle them too much.

So it's finding the balance of when is hovering too much and when we need to let go,

When we need to step in.

So if you need to be your best self,

You need to take care of yourself and then understand what a child's needs are.

And I feel like finding that balance,

That leads very well into our next episode which will,

So if you're very interested in the conversation that we just had,

I feel like our next episode about setting healthy boundaries is going to really be great for you.

Because I feel like you have to,

When there's so many different things to multitask with,

It's not about multitasking.

It's not about doing everything all at the same time.

It's about finding your time and being all in in that minute.

Like you talked about earlier with the phone,

Like if you're with your child,

Be with your child.

If you're working,

Be working.

And that sounds so much easier than it is to do,

I think.

Well,

I think we've mentioned this in other episodes,

But what will help people do their best and be present doing it is constantly connecting it to their values.

Right?

So when you are with your child,

What are your values connected to parenting?

And so when you're doing what you're doing,

Is it in line with my values or not?

And if it's not,

Then you correct and you're doing your best when you're living by your values.

So,

For example,

If the phone is an issue,

Well,

Set aside time for your phone.

If it's work related,

Well,

Tell yourself I'm going to spend 10 minutes with my child and those 10 minutes,

My phone's going to be on the counter.

And these 10 minutes,

I'm parenting and I'm connecting to my child.

And then I'll go back to my phone because it's work related,

Let's say,

Because you have values related to work.

But like you said,

We cannot multitask and research shows that we tasks switch,

But we do not multitask.

We don't do it well,

Actually.

Right.

Because if you're looking at your phone,

You're not really paying attention to what's happening.

And if you're trying to do work,

Something's going to suffer.

Yeah.

Something's going to suffer.

And again,

I think that with setting healthy boundaries,

We're going to get into that in more detail.

But yeah,

It's like you keep saying,

Living consciously,

You know,

Something that you said about meditation in one of the first episodes that we did,

I think rings very true in this moment,

Which was,

You said,

Allie was talking to you about being a young mother and not knowing when she had not been able to find time for herself.

And you were like,

If you're in the shower,

That's your time to meditate.

If you have five minutes in the shower,

Ten minutes in the shower by yourself,

You know,

It doesn't have to be with a nap.

It doesn't have to be all like does a mantra,

Like just practice mindfulness.

Be present with the water pouring on your hair.

You know,

Is that what you're saying now?

Like practice being in the moment and doing your best in that moment for whatever you're doing?

Yeah,

Because if you're,

If we use the child example,

Which would apply for work,

But replace child with computer or colleague,

When you're with your child and you are present,

You're engaging all your senses,

Which is the basis of mindfulness,

Right?

You're integrating information from your eyes,

Your ears,

Smell,

Touch.

So when you have your child in your arms,

Notice what it feels like to hold their little bodies next to you.

Look at their eyes,

Like look them at the eyes.

Are you lighting up when you're looking at them?

Are you looking at them in the eyes?

Are you just staring elsewhere thinking about something else?

If your head's at work while you're holding your child,

You're not seeing your child and your child picks up on that.

So totally.

And it applies for work as well.

If you're at work,

If it's customer service,

Be present to the person who's in front of you and notice their body language and pay attention to their words.

It's the same in the shower,

Right?

You're engaging the sense of the skin,

The water of your skin,

The smell of the water,

The taste,

The soap.

So when you're fully present,

You're totally engaged in this moment in time and it's hard not to do your best when you're there because you will respond to reality as opposed to some story that's going on in your head.

I think what you just described is I feel like when we think of the phrase,

Always do your best,

Right?

Or just get the always out.

When you think of the phrase doing your best,

You know,

Living my best life,

That kind of thing that like people are talking about,

You know,

Common phrases nowadays.

How old am I?

But,

You know,

Doing your best,

Right,

Feels lofty.

We think about it in the macro sense.

Like we think about being a great parent,

Being great at our job,

Making money,

Having a great relationship,

Having nice stuff.

We think about doing our best,

Being our best selves,

Living our best life in this really macro sense,

This really wide net of everything.

And kind of what you're saying is no,

If you want that,

You know,

If you want the success in those areas,

Slow down and focus on the micro stuff.

Focus on the moments,

Find the moments,

Be with your child when you're with your child,

Work when you're working,

You know,

Take the time to tie your shoes the right way.

The stuff you mentioned are byproducts of doing your best.

Yeah.

Right?

So if you're successful and make a lot of money,

It's a byproduct of you doing your best.

So like I said earlier,

Doing your best is not a qualifier in the sense good,

Bad.

It's be all in,

Be present,

And that will be doing your best,

Being conscious of your choices.

And you cannot not be happy as a result because the byproduct will be success.

That's awesome.

All right.

Well,

That's about all the time we have for this one today.

Let's get into the gratitude.

Yeah,

You go first this time.

Oh,

Geez.

Okay.

Did not think about that.

I wish I should have the gratitude locked and loaded,

But I don't ever,

And it's a bad thing.

I am grateful right now for noticing my own potential.

Does that make sense?

I can feel a big believing in myself wave right now.

And I think it's really important.

And following things like these four agreements will really help make sure that that wave continues.

But yeah,

So I'm grateful that right now I'm feeling very positive about what's ahead.

That's what I'm grateful for right now.

That's great.

Thanks.

What am I grateful for?

A bit like you,

I love summer.

I'm grateful for cool nights because although I'm grateful for my air conditioning because it's it was like sometimes 40 degrees Celsius here.

The thing with air conditioning is your windows are always closed.

And I like natural light.

I like air circulating.

So and I love sleeping in the cold.

So I'm so grateful for cool nights because I get to have my windows open and sleep in the fresh air,

Which means I sleep better.

That's awesome.

That's really great.

Well,

That's that's really nice.

That's a nice way to end.

And by you know,

By the time people are listening to this is definitely going to be some cool nights everywhere.

So so that's it for this episode.

Gina,

Where can people find you for more info and for help doing their best?

Yeah,

You can find me on Dr.

Madrigrano dot com and on all the social media.

Talk to you soon.

More information or to book an appointment with that,

Gina,

Go to Dr.

Madrigrano dot com or click the link in the description of this episode.

Reviews

Very interesting and helpful! Thank you!

Great points, thank you both 💜 x