What is your best work and are you doing it?

I came across a great concept in the book Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey, it’s called “best work”.

He explains that Aristotle and the Dalai Lama both taught us that humans thrive through taking action. This is not just any action though, but action that best utilises their specific and unique experience, knowledge and perspectives. When we take action that utilises these things, we are doing our best work.

How often do we really sit down and audit what we do in order to see how well it lines up with this? In the journey to figuring out what it was I wanted to do when I had my “is this it?” moment having secured the Senior Management role I’d chased without knowing why. I had a head full of ideas around what I wanted to do, but no way to evaluate which option was best, until I started to get to what really fired me up.

In the book, Gilkey recommends listing all the ideas/potential projects that you have in mind at any given time and then crossing all that don’t fully resonate with or excite you. From here you’ll then have a more concise list, from which you can identify which is most important to you, which would you wake up early to do? Which would excite you the most? Use this approach to single out just one.

This gives us a great way to focus in on what matters the most to us. But more than this, it helps us to identify what fires us up the most. This helps us to understand what we can look for as we work on bringing our lives into alignment with ourselves.

For every single one of us, there is a list of things we’ve done, learned, accomplished and developed a rounded understanding of. Bringing our attention back to these lists regularly, can help us bring life into alignment with who we really are.

My key takeaways:

·??????Consistent you-centric action is key: this is how we thrive and how we can be consistently fired up by what we do.

·??????This process can help to reduce overwhelm: focus on what really fires you up and what you almost can’t not do, as opposed to all the things you could potentially do. A smaller, streamlined to-do-list and narrowed focus means we don’t spread ourselves too thinly.

·??????Develop an understanding of our drivers and motivators: when you reduce the list of projects/ideas down to the ones that really resonate, note what they have in common. What is it about them that fires you up?

·??????Apply it to your job search: at no time should a job search be mechanical, seeking a new role is always a chance to bring/keep your career into alignment with you.

·??????Use it to refine your existing role: free yourself from any idea that your role is rigid and can’t evolve. Being honest with your boss when you see a chance for your role to evolve in such a way that best utilises your strengths, presents a win-win scenario for both employer and employee.

Are you doing your best work? If not, start making plans. Doing your best work comes from living in alignment with yourself, if best utilises your unique strengths and when you’re fulfilled at work, you’re happier at home. Life is short, live your own.?