How can we do our best work if we don’t know what we need to do it?

They say that knowledge is power. If that is the case then it is reasonable to suggest the greater our knowledge of what we need to do our best work the more powerful, or impactful, that work will be for us and others. 

When we talk about ‘work’ here we mean whatever it is we either dedicate or want to dedicate most of our efforts and energy towards. In this case work can be seen as a creative process combining thought and action and will. However, if this is what we mean by work, what does it mean to do our best work? 

How would we know if we are doing our best work? What does it look and feel like?

Often what comes up is a feeling or sense that our actions and thoughts, and whatever they are creating, feel ‘right’ for us in that moment and context no matter the scale of the task. 

So what makes any of this important? 

If you think of a time you felt you were doing your best work, what did it feel like?

What would it be like to experience more of that? 

It feels reasonable to assume that we would all like to experience those feelings more. And no doubt in doing our best work will likely have greater impact and success and if we are having an impact and it feels good, no doubt that will also bring a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment that renews our energy to continue to do our best work.

But those moments of doing our best work don’t necessarily arise often or naturally, so in understanding those moments more we can learn what we can do to create the conditions for us to do our best work more often.

Understanding our best work could answer bigger questions too

“What is my job on the planet? What is it that needs doing, that I know something about, that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?”

This blog has previously referenced this Buckminster Fuller quote. Perhaps in knowing our best work we are also answering a far bigger question or at least better able to take responsibility for things that need doing that we know something about in the best way we can. And in doing so we can only help ourselves to move closer to the far bigger answer of what our job is on the planet? Because what would the world be like if we were all able to do more of our best work?

Working out how we do our best work

Think about a time when you did your best work, where you felt fulfilled or that you rose to the challenge of the situation or a sense of alignment and ease in how you were working or whatever feeling comes to mind when you do your best work. 

It could be an idea you had, a project you complete or a specific task or situation. Now consider the following questions:

What was the thing?

What was the context? What was this work part of? 

What made it fulfilling? How were you doing it and with who? Where?

What were you working on? What was the content? 

What did you do that enabled you to rise to the challenge? 

Beyond the ‘work’ you were doing, what else did you have? What did your days look like? 

From all of the above, what was it that made it feel like you were doing your best work? 

What do these answers highlight about how you do your best work?

How does that all compare to a time when you felt less than at your best? What is different in the two examples? 

What assumptions might these examples challenge about what you think you need to do your best work?

Context and content

Doing our best work can feel so elusive because it can be a combination of so many factors:

• The content - what we are working on and whether it is important to us

• The conditions we are working in and around the work - what are the other things going on that allowed us to be at our best or hindered that? For example routines, habits, the environment we were living or working in.

• The context of the work - when are we doing it, what is it part of, what point were we at in life and how did that work fit in? 

Knowing what we know now, how can we take responsibility for doing our best work?

Out of all the things that stand out in those answers, what can you control to enable you to do more of your best work? 

Sometimes doing our best work may not even be about the work, it may be that there are other things giving us the energy and motivation and inspiration to do that work. 

What would it look like to take responsibility for creating those conditions as much as possible? 

And given that as we work on doing our best work we will learn more and refine further, 

what experiments may you run? 

And how often do you want to revisit those experiments to see if you’re doing more of your best work.

No doubt our answers are specific to us, yet doing our best work is likely to interact with others and benefit from their doing their best work. So how can we enable others to do their best work too?

Doing our best work is as much about making the effort to enable us to be our best, which is taking responsibility for our skills, strengths, talents and interests as well as what we need to best utilise them. It will mean saying ‘yes’ as many times as ‘no’ to things, but it first starts with knowing what we are saying ‘yes’ to and ‘no’ to.

Sometimes doing our best work, starts with understanding what doing our best needs before we even start the work. Because, when we have what we need to do our best work, the work takes care of itself. 

In enabling us to do more of our best work, what would we love to create?

What would the world be like if we were all able to do more of our best work?