For all my 90’s R&B lovers, you may have started singing Aaliyah. For my mother and father, they would have brought out their bell bottoms and belted out the Isley Brothers “at your best, you are love!”
So let’s just stay with At Your Best. As I age and reflect on my life, basketball coaching career, and as an educator; I can always say I have been at my best.
I know I know! You may say, there is no way that you could have been at your best on days that weren’t so good for you. I’ll break down my thoughts
We all have days that aren’t the best. Woke up feeling under the weather (I don’t use the S word when talking about the common cold), you got some bad news, or you are sitting in traffic when you are already late. We all have examples of situations that alter what our day looks like and our mood in relation to it.
Let me climb back up to the 1st sentence in the last paragraph. “We all have days that aren’t the best.” I didn’t say anything about YOU in that sentence. You are still at your best regardless of the curve ball thrown at you.
Deeper explanation. Shit happens and always will. You got a flat tire on your way to an interview, got there late, feel that you bombed the interview, and then go back home and think that you are a failure because you weren’t at your best. False! We are always at our best.
You are at your best and doing your best at all times. You may not be in the greatest of space while doing what you are doing, but you are giving the best of you at that very moment!
I have been coaching high school basketball for 20 years. I have learned many things from the student athletes that I have had the pleasure of coaching. One of the main things was, they always gave me their best. It may not have been the best I was seeking, but nevertheless, it was their best in the moment. The student athletes I coach deal with a lot in their lives. Homelessness, food insecurity, single parent home, alcohol and drug abuse, and childhood trauma just to name a few. As I matured as a coach, I realized that on game day, basketball might not be on my player’s mind. Where he plans to sleep is. And during that game I inner-stood that he’s at his best. Not what I thought his best should be.
Being at your best is simply meaning you are enough and you are doing the very best with what you have at that moment. Damn what others say. That is their judgement.
Just remember you are enough! As Aaliyah says “At your best — you are love.”
Commenti