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My friend had a six-month-old waking for 3 A.M. feeds, a two-year-old demanding attention all his waking hours, and a full-time job.
😫 I’m tired just typing that.
During one of our sidewalk chats, she wistfully said she wished she could work out again. Being the resource queen, I recommended my yoga studio, sharing they have a live-virtual option that works with her schedule.
“If I’m going to workout, I need to go in-person,” she said.
She wasn’t being stubborn. She was being a high-achiever.
And she'd fallen into a high-achiever trap:
Be perfect, or it’s pointless.
How the “first best” approach is holding you back
Economists have a name for this trap. They call it “first best” thinking.
“
The first best refers to the outcome society can achieve if there is full information about preferences and constraints and people are able to fully optimize.
The second best concerns the optimal outcome if one or more of the conditions cannot be satisfied, due to missing information or for some other reason. If this is the case, then the ideal solution may be different.
–Emily Oster, Economist and Founder of
ParentData
Translation: First best is the perfect scenario. Second best is the best possible scenario given reality.
But high-achievers don’t see two options. We see first best or nothing. It looks something like ...
→ If I can’t do the in-person class, I won’t work out at all.
→ If my friend's invite to hang out doesn't line up conveniently with my schedule, then I won't go.
→ If I don't have a clear plan on how to move on from this job that I hate, then I'll just suck it up like I always do.
☝🏼 That kind of rigidity is a great way to trip over your own cape.
While this is similar to the “have it all” mindset, the two are distinctly different. Thinking in a “first best” way is more than having sky-high standards for yourself. It means things have to be perfect or they’re pointless.
Labeling something as pointless is a convenient excuse to avoid the hard things and protect your ego.
We can live with our misery...until our choice to "not choose" starts to hurt the people around us.
When you set aside your ego, you’ll find that there are many ways to accomplish the things you want. There’s only one first best option, but a plethora of second best options.
Choosing isn't the hard part. It's changing the narrative that you need to make the best choice, or else you deserve to be punished if anything goes wrong.
Second best is the new gold standard
Growing up, we were told to "do your best...even if it means sacrificing your health, relationships, and joy."
Well fine, they only said the first three words, but the rest was implied.
Which wasn't so hard for the first half of our careers where we had to bust our asses at work anyway. (Millennials really got the crap end of the stick.)
As we get older, there are more factors to our decision-making. If you burn time always pushing for first best, you’ll either achieve nothing or feel like shit when you surrender to second best.
For high-achievers second best feels like half-assing things. But there’s no one with a yardstick waiting to slap your hands and throw you in detention for not doing your best.
Let's not forget that your half-ass effort is most people's full-ass effort.
Half-assing things is more inconsequential than your nervous system thinks.
There’s a part of you that believes your way is the only way, probably because you’ve only been able to count on you. Maybe that part equates vulnerability with danger.
As a minority in several flavors, I couldn't afford to be "second best."
Letting go of control?
Surrendering?
No way.
...Then I learned that peace comes after surrendering when you're truly in a safe space.
We can’t control how long we get to live. We can't control how other people feel about us. We can’t control the job market.
But we can control how much we move our bodies. We can control how we spend our pockets of free time.
We can control what we decide to do next.
better > best
Seriously though, you know what's the best?
⭐ When second best ends up being the first best option.
My friend with two kiddos proved as much.
Months passed by, and I ran into her again while walking my dog. She said she ended up taking an online yoga class because her body started to hurt everyday and she couldn't ignore the pain anymore.
The class helped her feel like a human again, motivating her to sign up for other classes she really missed like pilates (virtually...for now).
I don’t think it’s just ego that stops us from choosing second best. We were never taught second best thinking. Instead, we crash into it when life happens.
That’s expensive and exhausting.
Here's a better way 👇🏼
You don't need first-best options or a step-by-step plan to change your life for the better.
You need to learn how to make bold decisions with clarity and conviction. You need a room full of people who understand why you’d want a change, when from the outside looking in it appears you have it all.
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We call indecision 'playing it safe,' but waiting for certainty is actually the highest-risk move.
Tell me: what trips you up the most when you try to make a decision about your career?
Take care of yourself,
