Your favorite self vs. your best self. Self-care and Your Mindset.

There was a social campaign that came out of a former White House that said "be best". A call to a common refrain of modern living--be your “best self”. What exactly does that mean? How does anyone know what your "best" is?

I realize there are also caveats or exceptions to this phrase like, "when you know better you do better", "always be improving", implying that we are not all our best all of the time.

But what if we decide to look at self-care and self-improvement in a different light? What if we acknowledge that the idea we are always a problem to be fixed, solved, or improved is as much toxic as it is inspiring? Now what do we have to strive for?

In pop-psychology there is the idea of "healthy striving", which is the allegedly the antithesis of perfectionism. Perfectionism, this idea that we must be perfect--or arguably always the "best" version of ourselves, could help us achieve our goals, yes. But at what cost? Is the cost our deep-felt satisfaction at who we are, even in our murkiest moments? I think so. Healthy striving attempts to marry the idea that we can be attempting to improve ourselves while also acknowledging that there is a dark side to self-improvement.  But, honestly, let’s take it a little further.

 We all love a favorite.

We love to root for our favorite team, drink our favorite beverage, and slide into our favorite sweats after a long day out in the world. 

But let me ask this: what is your favorite thing about you?  I think if we start to embrace the favorite things about ourselves we find more space for rest, diversity, modified ambition, and a wider range of opinions; which feels like magic in a world that is striving to keep us homogenized.

So let me ask you again—what is your favorite way you show up in this world?

I’ll start. One of my favorite things about me I will always try and understand deeply the things, events, and people around me. To a point that is probably annoying to my friends and family. I ask a lot of questions to wrap my head around things, which means I will spend a lot of time trying to understand something or someone and less time on making decisions about those people and events.

Maybe you can show up with your weird-ass sense of humor in hard times, or perhaps you always pause and reflect on things before you answer, or you are scared of lots and lots of things but do them anyways—all those things can be part of your favorite you.

There are also fewer rules to "favorites" vs. "best".

We can embrace showing up as our favorite selves with gusto as long as we also consider others while doing so. For example, I was reading a book The Good Life by Marc Schultz and Robert Waldinger with the Sunlight studio book club, and the book discussed the concept of getting to deeply see and know your partnered person. So in the spirit of me showing up as my favorite self, for a solid week I was asking my husband questions like "what do you dream about in your life when you are 60?".

Now, my husband has known me long enough to ignore a lot of those things, but honestly this desire to deeply understand things is one of my favorite parts of myself. I do want to deeply know people, and I will always ask.  I also got the privilege of getting to know a few of my husband’s hopes, dreams, and fears in ways we haven’t discussed before.  It was fun for me to embrace showing up with curiosity as part of my favorite me, and that experience made me realize I love it when I show up with that quality. 

Curiosity may not be part of my “best” self, but it sure is a favorite thing about me.

What is the true difference between your “best” self, and your “favorite” self? The idea of being your "best" self often directly relates to someone else's idea of best. This is an especially unfair standard when you consider folks of marginalized identities such as people with disabilities, and folks of color, and women. In those scenarios our "best" is defined by other people who don't know us, our histories, and rely heavily on social norms to decide what our "best" should be.

Take one look at the bizarre controversy between NCAA basketball stars Angel Reese and Kaitlyn Clark, arguably two of the best players in the sport right now. This entire controversy was centered around how women should be their "best" behavior, and was blown up by highlighting how a women of color “should” show her competitive spirit vs. her white counterpart. This idea of "best" sportsmanship is deeply rooted in misogyny in relation to women, as no person would ever criticize men for their competitive nature (Larry Bird and Michael Jordan being two of the biggest shit-talkers in the sport).

Competition got both of those young women to where they were--a national championship, so that, to me, is them showing up as their favorite selves. Honestly, I hope both of those women realize they showed up as their favorite self in that moment, and I truly hope that for you have a “favorite self” moment soon too.

Your favorite self, the one who takes a break and watches puppy videos, snags a Danish to eat while writing those dreaded emails, and who spends time looking at weird houses on Zillow for laughs--that can be the most wonderful part of, especially as she shows up in all times, not just the “best” ones.

Does that mean there aren't things you want to change, shift, or improve? Of course not. But let's remember you don't need to eliminate your favorite self in order to achieve your dreams; your favorite you is much more important than you realize.

So think about your favorite self.

If you don’t know who she is, go find her.

Write a love letter to her.

Life is journey to remember we are our favorite self, even in hard times.

What are you doing when you are your favorite self? 

Caring and nourishing ourselves deeply is the act of radically knowing and loving ourselves. Striving to show up as our favorite version of ourselves allows us the opportunity to embrace all of our weird and wonderful quirks and take those things with us as we move forward.

Sure, it is always great when we can operate at our best. But I want to actively encourage you to love your favorite self even when your “best” feels far away.

Want to know more about how to create a life where your favorite self gets to thrive?  Check out our personal environmental care webinar (that’s the stuff around you) here.