When Are You At Your Best?

When challenges arise, it helps to know when you’re at your best.

Why? Because, by definition, challenges are challenging. And when we’re at our best, challenges become imminently more doable. When we’re at our best, we’re more creative and spontaneous – more capable and confident.

When we’re at our best, we tend to see challenges in the best possible light – as intriguing puzzles to solve, games to win, tests to ace!

So it naturally follows that if we know what helps us be at our best, we can take the necessary steps to get back there when we’re not.

This? or That?

What follows, then, are some questions to help you better understand what peaks your skills, interests, talents, and abilities.

But first a word of caution:

If you’re like most, you’ll want to say, “It depends.” And, yes, of course it does. But you’ll find this a more meaningful exercise if you resist the urge to say that. Rather, go a bit deeper than what you can do – get in touch with what you prefer.

Ready? Let’s begin.

Here are ten sets of choices to get you started, but feel free to create, and choose from, as many other distinctions as come to mind:

• Do you prefer working with others? – or working alone?
• Do you prefer solving problems? – or leveraging opportunities?
• Do you prefer bigger? – or more targeted?
• Do you prefer helping others? – or others helping you?
• Do you prefer facts? – or ideas?
• Do you prefer vibrancy? – or calm?
• Do you prefer creating? – or editing?
• Do you prefer overhauling? – or optimizing?
• Do you prefer planning? – or improvisation?
• Do you prefer new and innovative? – or tried and true?

Aligning Preferences

So let’s say you have a deadline approaching for a project or assignment that, frankly, doesn’t thrill you. How can you apply this?

Well if, as example, you prefer relationships (working with others) to solitude (working alone), you would likely become more motivated by calling or visiting some people you respect and admire to get their views on how best to move things forward. Conversely, if you prefer solitude, you would likely get more value from some extended ‘one-on-none’ session with just you and a whiteboard.

If you prefer to refine what others have said (editing) rather than capture your own ideas (creating) you might want to delegate specific elements of your assignment to your direct reports so you have something to work with. Conversely, if you get inspired through creating, you might find that drafting a scope document or executive summary to share with others as a more meaningful way to start.

And if you prefer a more structured approach to your work (planning) versus something more free-form (improvisation) you might start with an outline or project plan or to do list. Conversely, if you prefer taking a less structured approach, doing some mind-mapping, or capturing your ideas with colored pens on rearrangeable sticky notes would likely prove more beneficial.

And the more preferences you can combine, the better.

Key Traction Point⤞

No one can be their best at all times. (If you could, it wouldn’t be called your ‘best’, it’d just be ‘normal’.) So becoming more skilled at returning to your best is the what we’ve been talking about here.

Remember that Japanese proverb, nana korobi, ya oki? (“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”) It’s not about when, or where, or even why you might not be at your best at any particular moment in time – it’s about how to return to your best as quickly and effortlessly, as possible.

That is the goal. That is the skill to develop.

What do YOU do to get back to being at your best?