do the best with what you’ve got

After my meditation session a few days back, as I was going through my morning routine, my inner voice quietly whispered to me, “You’ve got to make the best with what you’ve got.” It instantly struck a chord with me. I knew there was a great truth and wisdom to this maxim, and I knew had to always remember it, no matter how chaotic the world and circumstances become in my life.

The phrase ‘do the best with what you’ve got’ has been echoing in my head since then off and on. On some level of consciousness, I know I need to internalize this truth and start living it, letting go of blame and the victim mindset.

Sometimes, it’s extremely easy to fall in the “If only” trap. If only I had *blank*, my life would be so different. If only I had *blank*, I would get the level of success and respect that I deserve. And so on and so forth. Even though there might be some truth to it and that more and better resources in our hand would help us do more and attain better outcomes, but if we constantly entertain this kind of thoughts, we set up a dangerous trap for ourselves.

When we start thinking that we have very few resources with us, soon we feel powerless and also come up with excuses for our lack of action and perseverance to get ourselves off the hook. We need to remember that change is constant, and if we do the best with what we’ve got right now, we build a bigger and better future for ourselves.

We need to stop comparing ourselves with others. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” We all have our own unique journey and we do a disservice to ourselves and our gifts and talents when we compare ourselves with others. Instead of looking outside, we need to focus on what’s right in front of us, chances are we may realize that what we have is enough, and furthermore develop insights that may help us turn our obstacles into opportunities.

In this day and age of access and abundance, and instant connection and communication, we have countless number of resources available to us at our fingertips to help us go further in our journey. The most important thing is starting and being consistent, and making sure that we constantly expose ourselves to new information, ideas and insights.

Even if we feel we have less resources at our disposal, we need to remind ourselves this simple truth: constraints breed creativity. If we change our perspective, and understand that when we have no option but doing the best with what we’ve got, it actually helps us exercise our creativity. As our creative muscles grow stronger, we become better with finding more resources and decipher ways to improve our craft.

As we enhance our creativity with minimal resources, we start to understand that less is actually more and simplicity is indeed sophistication. We become more appreciative of what we have right now rather than getting into the scarcity mindset. And as we appreciate the resources we have, we start using them to their maximum potential.

Limitations can help us bring things into perspective. As we start embracing the process of doing the best with what we’ve got, we begin to go through one of the most impactful and life-changing exercises that we can ever experience.