Hello friends. Welcome back to another post. The topic of todays post is how to be the best. Well, thats quite vague so lets be more specific here because I’m thinking you can’t read minds. If you can, I promise I don’t think about career capacity and the vastness of the world all the time. Back to the original point, “the best” is something we often see on inspirational stickers, but what does that truely mean and what does it take to really deserve a sticker? 

My goal for this post is to have a slightly clearer idea of how to fulfill my full capacity and be “the best” at anything that I should desire in the future. The question that is driving my Tina-Turner-fuelled-hunger for knowledge is as follows:

“What skill is the most important to develop now to help us be the best at whatever we choose later?”

This is a 14th draft of this question and it’s the closest I can get to asking what I need to know. I’m feeling quite smug because it’s my first time formulating a driving question and I think I did pretty well. 

My hypothesis is that the way to the top is by evaluating yourself and using others feedback productively. This way, you are constantly improving your mindset and taking steps forward to accomplish your goals. This is a skill I aim to practice because my Dad has always preached about the joy of sitting back at the end of the day, week, or year and feeling as though it hasn’t been wasted by your own incompetence and laziness. He also preaches constantly about good oral hygiene so remember to floss, for my Dad’s sake. 

Now one of the most important parts of my post is the “why” behind the whole idea. This is an important thing that I think many people forget about when they start a project and its a skill I learned from this book, called “Find Your Why” by Simon Sinek. My why was vigorously shoved in-front of my face the same way a cool leaf picked up by a toddler off the side walk would be. 

I was sat in math class after a mental calculation test that I had inevitably failed because I am just about as competent as a floppy disk from the 80s, and as I brought my agenda up to my teacher’s desk, he told me to get some practice so I could be the best. Quite a simple remark, but it struck a cord.

 I walked back down the rows of cream coloured desks and thought, “What does it take to be the best? How can I do that?”

I went home and read about career capital theory and a flame was sparked that wouldn’t be satisfied by anything but an answer.

A few days later I thought again about how to achieve my full potential. 

These last few months have been some of the strangest of my life so far. There are countless tests, all in French, and I spend a good amount of time on my own, or with my bike. This is a big change from last year and I’m trying to use this time as productively as possible. That’s why I started blogging, vlogging, rock climbing, reading and so many other things. It’s difficult but I know in the future that if I use this time to grow myself I will be extremely thankful for the opportunity to do so. 

Having an entire year to reflect is daunting so with the winter exhibition approaching quickly, I decided that I would share some of my ideas and questions with the world. As a quick note, this is my Humanities project for the grade 9 PLP winter exhibition and is one of three things that will be done by the normal date of the normal exhibition. Keep an eye out for the Maker and Scimatics posts that will be up soon.

Those two things are the driving factors for me to find an answer to this question. That is my why. Simply put, the why behind this post is that when self improvement and being the best were brought to my attention, I needed an answer to satisfy them. 

Now the way I intend to get the answer I crave, like golem craves the ring, is by asking people from all different fields, and doing some sleuthing online. This seems like the best way to solidify or adapt my hypothesis. As it has now been 12 paragraphs and frankly no progress on our answer, I think it’s about time to get into it. 

Now the first step into this project I took was not paying attention in geography and writing some notes on old math homework. Here they are. In future years, this will be considered the Rosetta Stone of driving questions. 

The next step was to actually ask someone. This took all of the non existent courage I had, as I am a small Canadian kid who is just trying their best. 

I asked my math teacher about what he thought the answer to my question was. He did give me an answer even if it wasn’t exactly encouraging. 

After asking and doing my best to explain my question, now face red as a tomato, I got my first response. He said that if there was an answer to this, everyone would be doing it. There would be classes and lessons that taught this simple answer to everyone, in school or not. It is a pointless question to ask because there isn’t an answer, was “the vibe” I was getting from him.

As now I felt like a ballon that has been let fly into space and suddenly been popped be its own expectations, I decided to do some research.

I started with the website that has all the answers to every possible question ever, wikiHow. They told me to follow my dreams and have a clear vision of who I want to be. This is about the level of advice I would expected from the webpage that likely has very smart rats typing vague posts for them. 

Next, I checked Time Magazine who has at least some intelligent birds writing their posts. They said that the path to success is making progress by changing your life. I think that it’s a good concept but some changes, like moving to Switzerland, can effect you more negatively than positively. Change is the only constant in life so it’s good to get adjusted to it but change has to monitored some how. That’s where goals come in to play.

As I learned last year, smart people make goals and work hard to reach them. I wrote a whole post on my experience with goals last year. Go check it out because there is some interesting stuff in there. Goals are really important and I’m glad that I got the chance to learn about them and occasionally get threatened by Ms Willemse last year.

With all of this knowledge now filling my brain and spilling out my ears, I thought it might be a good idea to ask one of the people that has helped me a lot in my short time as a cyclist, Coach Ayden. I wanted to know how he thinks the best way to answer this question was. Here’s what he said vaguely. If you’d like to see the full response, have a look at this post here. 

 He said that the three most important parts to him of being the best are commitment to the best or the steps that it takes to be the best, setting goals, actually achieving them, self discipline, and keeping it all fun.

These are amazing points and I hadn’t considered how emotions would play into being the best. If you know why and how you are going to achieve your goals but its extremely boring, there’s not much point! One of the quotes I try to keep in mind constantly is that the journey is just as important as the destination. I also think about the quote that states “To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish,” a lot but that is a post for another time.

Self discipline is one of the skills I most value in myself and in other people. The ability to set your sights on something you want and work to obtain it is a trait that I know will help everyone who has it in the future. It’s an important part of goal setting and I now think is an important aspect of being the best. 

Next, I wanted to see what one my favourite writers had to say about it. His name is Malcolm Gladwell and he has written Blink, Outliers, and more recently, Taking to Strangers. He recently did a talk that my mum happed to stumble upon so I decided to check it out. Who am I to deny destiny? Here’s the talk, it’s about the mismatch problem in our schools, sports, and in general life.

The talk showed me that the typical ways we asses ourselves are with tests, when what we really should be doing is self assessment and setting goals. This talk is a tad bit off topic but that’s one point for my theory and zero for the you-are-how-you-are theory. 

I also asked Monique Sullivan, a two time Olympic athlete and kick ass engineer. She had some really important ideas that I hadn’t thought about before. 

She mentioned self assessment and measuring your own progress which isn’t new, but the way of looking at it is. She stated, “I think feedback from external sources (coaches, parents, peers, teachers) are really important, but as I get older I have realized that not everyone knows exactly what my goals and intentions are.” That’s a really important point to me because I do so many activities that I have to prioritize things. That often meant that last year I wasn’t able to be at 100% in basketball or gymnastics because school and cycling came first. 

Monique says again that if you only consider others feedback, sometimes it feels as if you have been doing a poor job at what, unbeknownst to the person giving the feedback, might be a second, third or fourth level priority.

It’s important to be thankful for others feedback but also make self assessment a high priority because at the end of the day, it’s you that is held accountable by yourself. If you do something not to your best, you have to live with it. That moment where you have accepted what you’ve done is the moment that produces winners and losers.

Now lets make like parents on Christmas Eve and wrap it up. My final theory and answer to my driving question, (What skill is the most important to develop now to help us be the best at whatever we choose later?) is as follows:

There is not one skill that we can develop now to be the best later, but rather skills. Self motivation is one of them. It is trait that produces people who work hard, accept their individual actions and achieve their goals. The way to get to get to those goals is though setting them properly, having fun achieving them, using feedback efficiently, and self evaluating along the way. All of this together will make you one of the best at whatever you chose.

I’m extremely thankful for this opportunity to talk to some people that have really good ideas and be able to use them in my own way. I can’t wait to do more writing about things that interest me. 

I would also like to thank those who have helped me with this project, mainly Ayden, my math teacher, and Monique. It means a lot to me because I value all your opinions and appreciate you helping me. 

In conclusion, pessimism is never optimal, listen to the people who’s opinion you value, the way to the top is self motivated hard work, and remember to floss. Thank you for reading my post and I hope it was a moderately enjoyable experience.

The End