My wife and I both listened separately to a podcast about whether people were doing their best by Brene Brown this week. The underlying part of it was we need to give grace to people, because we do not know their circumstances and that may be all they can muster in that moment. The other aspect of it was setting boundaries when someone’s “best” is not at the standard we expect. I admittedly have high expectations for people who train with me, I’m stingy with promotions, and critical of low effort or poor attitudes. As a coach it is my job to pull more out of you, and sometimes that means that I see that you aren’t actually giving your best. Many times I see people give up because something is too hard, or they don’t like it, they ignore the same instruction repeatedly this is not someone’s best.
I feel like there is a distinction between your best and what you can do in the moment. Your best is peak performance, it is the optimal. I can give you grace on what you can do right now, but I also get to keep the boundary that you must meet my standard.