Shortly before the pandemic, I started doing my daily exercise routines at home instead of going to the Y. It works better with my schedule and saves me time on the road. I’ve bounced around between several different workout videos online, and they’ve all been good, but none of them made me excited about exercising. Not long ago, though, I stumbled upon Daniel from Australia, and my exercise life and outlook have changed dramatically. He and his wife, Alex, have an online program called Team Body Project, and it has allowed me to actually enjoy exercising for the first time in years!
I’m not telling you this so that you run out and exercise or join TBP. What I really want to do here is share something Daniel says in almost every video. During the workout, he constantly reminds the participants that all that matters is giving your best all day long and then waking up the next day and giving your best again.
Yes, we’ve all heard some version of this before, but for some reason, this time, it really struck me.
While Daniel is referring to exercise, isn’t it true that this should be our mantra in all areas of our lives – give our best all day today and then wake up tomorrow and do it again? In work, in play, in exercise, in how we greet and interact with others, in how we live our lives, we should be giving our very best every day. We should be striving to be the best person we can be, to live the best life we can live, and to treat others the best we can.
Sure, I know that some days we wake up with a groan. Just getting out of bed can be hard. The workday drags on, and the clock seems to move at a snail’s pace. You’re asking, how can we possibly give our best on those days?
And that’s the beauty about giving our best on every individual day. Sometimes our best is showing up. Sometimes, as Daniel points it, our best is hitting pause and taking a break. Our best today might not be the same as our best tomorrow. Outside factors might can be interlopers that change the dynamic–our allergies kick in, arthritis is flaring, a headache is coming on, an emergency is dropped on us, a child is sick. I could go on and on.
The key is, figure out what is the very best you can give that day, and throw yourself into giving it all you’ve got. Every day is a new day to reassess and decide what you need to do and how to do it to give your very best. Where were you lacking the day before? Where did you not give your best? How can you remedy that today? As St. Francis de Sales said, “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them — every day begin the task anew.”
We all face many day-to-day challenges. Some days are more challenging than others, but if we go through life giving our all, doing our best, striving to rise to the best of our abilities, we can overcome anything, and we can achieve. And on those days when we just don’t know what our best is, how to do our best work, put on our best face, or give the best of ourselves, there is something we can do to put ourselves on the right track. In the words of St. Benedict of Nursia, “Whenever you begin any good work you should first of all make a most pressing appeal to Christ our Lord to bring it to perfection.”
From the time I was in high school, my family has been involved in politics. My parents raised us in a very politically active household. We volunteered for candidates, held fundraisers in our home, made calls to get out the vote, and worked as volunteers at every level of government. It was no surprise to anyone when I told my parents that I had met someone special after attending a national political convention during the presidential election period in 1992, and it was no surprise that he was a politician. Ken was the youngest person ever elected to the Legislature in the state of Maryland and went on to win three more elections to the House of Delegates before becoming an appointee to the governor’s cabinet. After a very public ordeal at the end of his term, Ken left politics. We still attended dinners and fundraisers on occasion, but we agreed that our time of deep political involvement was over.
For the past few months, Ken has worked as the advisor to a local campaign. It’s his first dive back into the arena, and while he’s happy that he’s not the candidate, I can see the old flame being rekindled. Politics was his passion for so long, and it’s nice to see him engaged and enjoying it.
This past Sunday, I found myself at a fundraiser for that candidate. She’s an impressive woman with a lot to offer her community. As I listened, something she said jumped out at me. She told the story of her mother, a stay-at-home-mom who worked hard to go to law school while raising four children. She eventually became a judge and was the role model for this woman Ken is advising. The candidate said, “My mother taught me that anything is possible if I just believed that it could be possible.”
Like Daniel’s words of encouragement to give your best all day and then do it again tomorrow, I found encouragement in the words that anything is possible if we just believe. It reminded me of St. Francis of Assisi’s advice, “Start by doing what is necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
Today, give your best all day. Believe that whatever you set out to accomplish, you can achieve. Remind yourself that nothing is impossible. When you get up tomorrow, give your best again, and believe that by doing the necessary, you will do the possible and then the impossible.
Even on the days you don’t want to get out of bed, find your best and do it. In the immortal words from one of my all-time favorite books:
“And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!”
Oh, The Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss
Come see Amy on one of these dates:
April 23, 2022 – A Day of Wine and Roses Book Festival, Brook Hollow Winery, Columbia, NJ
June 4, 2022 – Christ Church 350th Anniversary Fair, Broomes Island, MD
June 15, 2022 – Catch Amy on Delmarva Life on channel 16, Salisbury, MD at 5pm.
June 18, 2022 – SunDial Books, Chincoteague, VA – The Launch of My New Chincoteague Trilogy!
June 18, 2022 – Crisfield Bluegrass Festival, Crisfield, MD, 1:00-7:00pm
August 13, 2022 – Makers Market, St. Michaels Inn, St. Michaels, MD 9am-3pm
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What I was writing about one year ago this week: It’s Not The Destination…
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Amy Schisler is an award-winning author of both children’s books and sweet, faith-filled romance novels for readers of all ages. She lives with her husband and three daughters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her books, Picture Me, Whispering Vines, and Island of Miracles are all recipients of Illumination Awards, placing them among the top inspirational fiction books of 2015, 2016, and 2017. Whispering Vines was awarded the 2017 LYRA Award for the best romance of 2016. The Good Wine, the sequel to Whispering Vines was released in June of 2021. Island of Miracles has outsold all of Amy’s other books worldwide and ranked as high as 600 on Amazon. Her follow up, Island of Promise is a reader favorite. Amy’s children’s chapter book is The Greatest Gift, and her most recent suspense novel is Summer’s Squall.
Amy’s second book in the Chincoteague Island Trilogy, Island of Promise, was awarded First Prize by the Oklahoma Romance Writer’s Association as the best Inspirational Romance of 2018 and was awarded a Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2019 for Inspirational Fiction. It is the 2019 winner for Best Inspirational Fiction in the RWA Golden Quill Contest, Best Romance in the American Book Awards, and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award of Fiction. Amy’s 2019 work, The Devil’s Fortune, a finalist in the Writer’s Digest Self-Publishing Awards and winner of an Illumination Award, is based, in part, on Amy’s family history. The third book in Amy’s Chincoteague Island Trilogy, Island of Hope, was released in August of 2019. Amy’s book, Desert Fire, Mountain Rain begins her new Buffalo Springs series. Book two, Under the Summer Moon, was released in December of 2021.
Amy’s new book, Seeking Tranquility, will be released June 15, 2022. Pre-order your copy now!
You may follow Amy on Facebook at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor, Twitter @AmySchislerAuth, Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/amyschisler and at http://amyschislerauthor.com.
Amy’s books: Crabbing With Granddad (2013), A Place to Call Home (2014), Picture Me (2015), Whispering Vines (2016), Island of Miracles (2017), Stations of the Cross Meditations for Moms (2017), The Greatest Gift (2017), Summer’s Squall (2017), Island of Promise (2018), The Devil’s Fortune (2019), Island of Hope (2019), A Devotional Alphabet (2019), Desert Fire, Mountain Rain(2020), The Good Wine (2021), Under the Summer Moon (2021).
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