Doing the best you can! What does that mean? How important is it? Are you doing the best you can? Or is BEING the best all about?

When I was in second grade, I brought my report card home. In Social Studies, I got a “C”. (In the 1950s, teachers graded all students, from first to twelfth grade, with traditional letters.) I was mortified. I had never gotten a “C” before and was worried about what my mom would say.

I remember that we had been studying the Plains Indians, and I just couldn’t understand the concept that there were groups of Indians that were part of different tribes and that they all lived on the plains to the west. I’m not so sure what I found so difficult, but I really didn’t get it. It had never been much further west than the state of Vermont, so I did not understand how the topography of the United States could be so different from what I knew in Vermont.

So I didn’t get it right – I got wrong answers on the worksheets and the quiz at the end of the unit. I was used to getting B’s and a few A.’s. I thought a “C” was the end of the world as I knew it.

I brought my report card home and showed it to my mom. She asked me, “Barbara Ann, was it the best you could do?” I assured him yes. What he said next was a lesson that I carried with me for the rest of my life. It was a lesson that I have used in all areas of life, as a student, as an athlete, as a parent, as a teacher, as a coach, indeed, in whatever endeavor I have undertaken. What he said to me was, “Barbara Ann, I don’t care if you get every” F “on your report card, as long as that’s the best you can do!”

Wow! What a relief that was! All I had to do was do my best and whatever it was, it was good enough. That released a ton of pressure! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, “Do your best because doing your best is all you can do and all you can do is enough!”

As an elite athlete, competing against the best skiers from around the world, sometimes the pressure came to me. I was starting to worry about how I was going to go. But every time I caught myself walking away from this lesson and was able to get back on track, the races were so much easier. Whenever he gave me permission to do my best, ski races were fun. When my last thought before leaving the start was, “I’m going to do my best!”, The results were so much easier.

Thanks mom for teaching me this lesson! (Years later, Mom told me that when she gave me that advice, she thought it was “slow”! Never mind, it’s still a lesson that I carry with me today.)