Being your best you

A week before he left for college, megachurch pastor Steven Furtick’s oldest son asked him, “Out of everything you’ve taught me, what’s the best advice you can give me right now?” 

“In that moment,” writes Furtick, “no profound answer came to my mind. The very idea of ‘the best’ freaks me out a little, like I’m expected to condense the world’s wisdom into a sentence and chisel it onto a stone tablet.”

He adds, “I don’t know the best advice, but I do know what the worst advice would have been. ‘Just do you.’

“Okay, maybe it’s not the absolute worst advice in the world, but it’s up there. Why? Because ‘you’ is someone you haven’t fully met yet. Certainly not by the time you graduate high school.”

He admits that “doing you” isn’t easy because it’s about being yourself. And he questions whether we can really know ourselves when we’re 18? Or 28? Or even 80?

“I’m not saying don’t do you. I’m not saying to be somebody else. Being your full, authentic, unique self is a solid goal to strive for and a healthy place to be. And letting go of the pressure of constantly comparing yourself to others is liberating. So, I’m all in favour of self-acceptance. Who else would you be, after all?”

The problem he’s discovered is that when we try to fix this we tend to climb onto the “future you” treadmill.

Future you? “It’s you, but with better friends, a flatter stomach, total financial freedom and near-absolute perfection in every moment. Future you is the shiny, perfect version of you. It’s who you wish you could be.

“Unfortunately, there are two problems. Too often it’s a mirage that stays just out of reach.” And then, it doesn’t come from inside you. “It’s more like a highlight reel of everyone else’s supposed strengths and successes. You only see their highlights, though. You don’t know what’s hidden inside them—or hidden inside you.” His point is, you need to be you, to be . . . you!¹

living your values

Psychologist Melissa Gerson goes further by emphasising the importance of living according to your values because, “When you live by your values, you’re living your best you.” That’s important when you begin to think about being you—your best you.

“Put simply,” says Gerson, “values are statements about what matters most to you. Like a compass, values give you direction, reminding you of your hopes, your priorities and the things in your life that move or inspire you.

“When your life is driven by values, there is never a start or finish line. At any moment, you can act on your values or ignore them. What’s important is that you’re in total control. Although you can never guarantee that you’ll accomplish a goal or fulfil a resolution, you can make the choice to live according to your values each and every day.”

Lisanne van Marrewijk in her post “How to Live Your Values” agrees, saying that “values are your driving force”. These become guiding influences in your life. 

In the same post, psychologist Jasmijn Eerenberg adds, “By taking an intentional approach, you get more clarity about what you want and what’s less of a good fit . . . If you have an idea of what’s important to you and what your values are, you’ll be better at navigating your way through life. That ends up being pretty satisfying.” 

“To start living your values,” adds van Marrewijk, “you can begin by addressing the areas of your life that feel particularly important to you right now”.

“Next, it helps to figure out concrete ways to integrate your values into your life. Suppose you think connection is important—what would you want to achieve with this? Set a goal for yourself and establish some (small) steps you can take to make this a reality.”

Eerenberg cautions: “Remember that you can’t turn your whole life around in a day.” She also recommends taking small steps. “Even small steps can bring about lasting change.”

knowing what’s important to you?

There are two classic ways of working out what’s important to you—these are your values. The first is to take a pen and paper and write down what matters to you in your life. Remember, you aren’t attempting to create a ranking of significance; that comes later. This is an anything-goes list.

When you’ve finished, that’s when you begin to rank them by their importance or significance. For instance, a health goal would rank more highly than, say, watching every episode of a television series.

The other oft-mentioned way of working out what’s important to you is to imagine what you want people to say about you on your 80th or 90th or 100th birthday. How do you want to be remembered? The goal with this approach is to begin living in ways now that will continue through your life.

a reality check

Brooks Adams kept a diary from a young age. When he was eight years old, he wrote in his diary: 

“Went fishing with my dad, the most glorious day of my life.” 

At the time, his father, John Adams, was serving as the US Ambassador to Great Britain. He was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and a founding father of the United States who served as its second president from 1797 to 1801. 

He also made a note in his diary about that day fishing: 

“Went fishing with my son, a day wasted.”²

Wasted?

Ouch!

There’s something so wrong-headed with that “wasted day” comment that’s difficult to reconcile with the realities of what makes a good family. What values are missing here? And please don’t dismiss this incident as natural in a “children should be seen and not heard” era.

Yes, it’s easy to momentarily sit in judgement and then move on. It’s better for us to ask ourselves how we are treating those who are important to us and how we can demonstrate that they really are significant. That’s the challenge to be your best you for them.

living intentionally

“Identifying your personal core values is one thing, but really living your values is a powerful way to lead an intentional life,” says Jessica Dowches-Wheeler from Bright Space Coaching. “Living your values brings more stability and authenticity to your life, because you know who you are and what you stand for (or won’t stand for). Living in alignment with your values also helps bring you closer to finding your life purpose and how you can serve the world.”

She illustrates with an example of having a “core value” of balance in your life. “You could choose an action like exercising for 20 minutes three times per week”, if you know this is what you should be doing. Or it could be “to start a search to look for a job that will give you more flexibility to work from home”.

She admits that there will be times when you will sense that you’re out of alignment with a value. However, “aligning back to your core values is one way to touch back to who you are and what’s important to you. It’s one way to help you work through the chaos and confusion and make decisions or take actions that bring you back to yourself.”

And that helps you to be your best you.

engage both the head and the heart 

Educator Sussana Wu-Pong Calvert from Virginia Commonwealth University tells of how she, in her young adult years, “fixated” on a personal formula for success. 

“My head was satisfied with my accomplishments, but I felt neither happy nor successful because I never listened to my heart while making decisions.

“On this path of following my head’s list for happiness, my energy and health were also depleted. I pushed through my exhaustion to meet my goals, at great and unsustainable personal expense. In short, I was trying to be someone I was not.”

Calvert puts it this way: “To create a happy heart and energised body, wherever possible we should pursue activities that cause happiness, joy, satisfaction and excitement, and are energising and engaging. Using and building on our natural tendencies while in pursuit of meaningful activities is a powerful way to feel fully alive and engaged.”

Being your best you is also about your head and heart working together—and finding your place in your world.

1. Steven Furtick, Do the New You, Hachette Book Group Inc, 2024.
2. Steven Furtick, 2024.