“Be Your Best,” is a statement I’ve heard pretty much all of my life but as an educator it takes  on new meaning. For a teacher, trying to be your best takes effort and understanding of exactly what those three words encompass. Being your best not only takes time but also a willingness to embrace the mentality that is necessary to constantly strive to be your best. Being your best is hard work. It requires you to seek out others, to embrace change, to look for new things, to try new ideas, and to sometimes accept failure. Being our best does not mean that we are perfect but that we are giving it our all in seeking to be.

People at their best, set goals. To operate at our best, we must know where we want to go. This involves deciding what we want to accomplish and filtering what we do in terms of its impact on reaching those goals. Those without a plan may be working hard but that work can be aimless. People working toward goals will always keep that goal in mind and work toward it. Those goals can be life and career goals or smaller day to day goals. For teachers many of these goals may be short term goals that are student oriented. For example a teacher might set a goal to find a better way to teach a specific learning target to struggling students. In working toward that goal, the teacher will be doing their best in the moment. When goals are set, we have an opportunity to focus our work and perform at our best.

Those who are at their best are efficient. They are constantly looking for those things that have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. This certainly doesn’t imply that they are being lazy but instead that they are making the best use of time. People operating at their best are constantly looking for better ways to do things that will save time that can be used more effectively in another way. The idea is not that they are looking for a way out of work but that they are looking for a way to spend less time accomplishing a task at hand so that that time can be better utilized somewhere else. Being your best requires being your most efficient.

Finally, when operating at their best, people need to be assimilating knowledge. The process of assimilation was first described by Swiss Psychologist, Jean Piaget. Assimilation is the process by which we take new knowledge and incorporate it into our personal knowledge base. Someone who is at their best is constantly learning and that learning is built on prior knowledge. When that knowledge is added to current understandings and perceptions, we call it assimilation. People operating at their best are in a constant state of assimilation: adding to, correcting, and sometimes even replacing prior knowledge. It is through this process that we continue to grow and understand; a necessary part to being at your best.

Being your best does not require perfection. It requires listening, observation, understanding and application of the world around you. It requires perseverance and effort to stick to and accomplish goals. And, it requires the assimilation of the knowledge gained from the world around. Strive to be at your best in what you are doing and the outcomes will often also be the best for you and those you seek to influence, educate, and assist.