Best self: A lousy goal, but a great guidance system

This may sound strange coming from someone whose entire career has focused on how to live a more energized, meaningful, fulfilling life, but the advice to “be your best self” drives me nuts.

Why?

Because I think setting that as a goal is unhelpful. Destructive even.

Your best self is a lousy goal

Here’s the thing. Your best self doesn’t exist. There will always, always, always be some way we fall short of the ideal. Your best self is a phantom reality that is impossible to find. So telling you to be that is setting you up for failure.

Oh sure, what I mean might actually be an, “aim for the stars and you’ll hit the moon” kind of message. I might mean, “Be the best you can be at any given moment – and sometimes that’s kinda messy, so be kind to yourself.” But so often, that’s not how it ends up landing.

We live in a culture that is always telling us we need to be “more” in order to be good enough. We need to make more money, drive a fancier car, be more beautiful, even be more happy.

Trying to measure up to that is exhausting in itself, but there’s something even more insidious that happens as a result of that ubiquitous message of more. It creates a lens we look through that affects what we see and hear.

So when we hear, “Be your best self,” we nod in agreement and say, “Check! Best self! On it!”

Sounds innocent, even super-positive and helpful, right? But behind the scenes, a more corrosive story often starts to unfold. The little not-enough gremlin that “message of more” has installed in our minds (the one that says, “I’ll be enough when _____”) says, “Best self! Check! I’ll be enough if I’m my best self.”

And then…

Messy…

Imperfect…

Human…

Happens…

We have a day when we fall far short of that best self. We lose our temper with someone we care about. We try something and screw it up spectacularly. We binge on junk food and feel terrible the rest of the day.

And the not-enough gremlin looks at that, compares it to the goal of being our best self, and concludes, “I’m not my best self, so I’m not good enough.”

The specific way this unfolds is individual from person to person, but that’s the general gist.

Bottom line, aiming to be your best self is a crappy goal, because it’s a state that doesn’t exist. And that sets us up for the not-enoughness gremlin to have a field day when we inevitably fall short of it.

Your best self is a great guidance system

A far better use of “best self” and “best life” is as a navigation tool.

What would your best self look like? What would your best self do? What habits would it have? How would it treat other people? How would it treat you?

Building that picture starts to give you a positive guidance system. A north star of sorts you can use to both guide how you show up day to day and recalibrate and get back on track when you wander off track.

Because you will wander off track. That’s just part of the messy, imperfect human experience. And when you do, you can make yourself wrong, and use it as proof of your not-enoughness, or you can say, “Oh dude! How did I get here? Where’s that best-self star?” and point yourself back in that direction. No muss, no fuss. It’s all just part of the adventure of being human.

Try this: Start laying the foundation for a best self guidance system. Begin with a picture of what “best self” even means to you. What would it look like? How would you show up? What qualities would you have? What would you do? A simple laundry list can be a good starting point – this will be a work in progress.

Once you have an initial picture, ask yourself, “What one thing can I do to point myself in that direction?” That could be a reinforcement (reinforcing something you already do that is moving in the best-self direction) or a redirect (making a different decision, starting a more positive habit, etc.).

Each week, take another compass reading and ask, that same question: “What one thing can I do to move towards that best-self direction?”

Step by step, week by week, that compass reading and that question moves you in the direction of a life you feel good living, messy, imperfect humanness and all.