Isn’t good enough. It just isn’t. I’m sorry; I know we tell our kids…”try your best, that’s all that matters”. But it isn’t all that matters. As a matter of fact, I can’t recall ever getting the Tried his Best award. I’ve gotten blue ribbons, gold medals, championship belts and honorable mention awards but never a tried his best certificate.

My coach, CJ Martin at CrossFit Invictus, told me once…”Full Effort is Full Victory.” (It’s part of a quote from Gandhi by the way.) Full Effort. Not best effort. This is not a rationale for not winning by the way. I can’t do anything about my opponent’s efforts, the weather or the playing field. I can’t control the things I can’t control. All I can control is my effort. And not just the effort on game day. The effort 6 months before game day. Every day in every practice, in every attempt, did I provide my full effort, not my best effort? Was I focused in my mind and body or was I somewhere else? Full effort.

You are probably thinking to yourself about now…”how does this apply to me? I don’t compete. I’m not a world class athlete.”
Your life is a battle. Every day is a fight between the right way and the easy way. Every day you get to choose to put forth your full effort or your best effort. I did my best is what second place says. You can rationalize and compromise and decide you aren’t going to speak the truth today…you are going to do your best. Or you can pull your boots on look life dead center and give full effort. You can speak the truth. You can own your feelings. You can grab the right way and throw it over your shoulder and kick the easy way to the curb.

We all have things we aren’t’ doing. Truths we aren’t speaking. Stuff that we aren’t facing because we are afraid of the consequences…it isn’t the right time, I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings yet. Is that full effort….full effort to stand in the world whole and complete? Full effort to be honest and tell the truth?

Your life depends on your full effort. Your full effort to confront the demons of mediocrity, compromise, and cop outs. At the end your gravestone can read “he tried his best” or “he played full out”. The choice is yours.

Full effort is hard. Best effort is a cop out. Full effort is full victory. Best effort is a loser. Win the war between the right way and the easy way.

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
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