On Doing Your Best
Much of what any meaningful goal requires is made of things you don't enjoy doing — repeatedly. The shift that separates top performers is deceptively simple: if I'm already doing it, I'll do it to the best of my current ability. That decision alone turns the task from punishment into training.
What this edition is about
Any goal worth having is mostly made of tasks nobody enjoys, performed repeatedly, long after the novelty is gone. That's not a design flaw. It's the shape of the work.
The shift Boaz points to is almost too simple to take seriously: if I'm already doing it, I'll do it to the best of my current ability. Not perfectly, not heroically — to the best of what's available today.
That single decision changes what the repetition produces. The same hour spent resentfully is a sentence being served; spent at your current best, it's training, and it compounds.
- Meaningful goals are mostly built from repetitive work you don't enjoy.
- The commitment is to your current best, not to an ideal standard.
- Resentful repetition costs the same hour and returns nothing.
- Doing it well converts obligation into training.
Anyone grinding through the unglamorous middle of something worthwhile.
This page is a summary. The full edition — with the stories and the detail — lives on Substack.
Read “On Doing Your Best”On this edition
Decide that if you're doing it anyway, you'll do it to the best of your current ability. The hour is already spent — the only variable is whether it trains you or just passes. That framing removes the negotiation, which is where most of the exhaustion actually comes from.
Not the way I mean it. Your current best on a tired Thursday is not the same as your best on a good week, and it isn't supposed to be. The commitment is to the ability you actually have today, which is a standard you can meet rather than one you chase.