Demand the Best from Yourself

It’s easy to “let ourselves off the hook.”

We often give ourselves “the benefit of the doubt.”

When we make a mistake, we “cut ourselves some slack.”

Maybe we need to take a different approach. Perhaps instead of going easy on ourselves, we should demand the best from ourselves and hold ourselves to a higher standard? The Stoic philosopher Epictetus certainly believed so:

“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?? If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.”

When we give ourselves a pass, we’re not doing ourselves any favors. We’re excusing ourselves to be, as Epictetus so bluntly puts it, “quite ordinary.” And who wants to be ordinary? Surely YOU don’t, do you?

We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. It’s the only way to live a life of consequence. Living according to a higher set of standards allows us to be extraordinary. Different from the rest. More beneficial to the world and those we inhabit it with. When we are gone, we will be remembered. When we die, we will be missed.

I’m not advocating that you beat yourself up on a regular basis. That’s just depressing. We all screw up from time to time. We all fall short now and then. We're all human. Sometimes we need to offer ourselves the same grace we would offer others when they make mistakes.

However, I am suggesting that you might need to beat yourself up a little more often than you currently do. You may need to drop the kids gloves and put on the boxing gloves from time to time. You may need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself a very important question:

“Am I giving this my best?”

Well, are you?

Stop making excuses for yourself. Stop being careless and lazy with the precious time you have left. Stop putting things off. Stop being ordinary.

Isn’t it time you demand the best from yourself?