Over the past 20 years of my life I have received an immeasurable amount of advice from some very influential people. Some of this advice has been the guidance that I desperately needed to pick me up from my lowest points whereas other recommendations have been taken with a silent laugh before being tossed out of my memory. Among the plethora of advice that I have received, there is the common phrase, “Give 110% at everything you do” that seems to continuously repeat itself. I have always been a pretty logical thinker, so this phrase never came easy to me. It didn’t make sense that a person could ever be capable of giving 110%, and if so, would that person even be human? If I were able to give 110% in everything I did then I would be the perfect student, athlete, daughter, sister, friend, as well as being perfect at everything else I did. Though I questioned the validity of this advice, I never argued it.
It wasn’t until high school that I finally got a piece of advice that contradicted giving 110%. I remember I was at basketball practice when my coach projected the ever so common term, “everyone on the baseline!” We had run multiple lines that day along with countless full court, game speed, transition drills, and another double-down seemed almost impossible at that point. We lined up on the baseline dripping in sweat and breathing as if there wasn’t enough air in the atmosphere and awaited the whistle, but instead my coach called us all into a huddle. In that huddle I got some of the best advice I have ever received: be intentional. “What does that mean?” my coach asked. “Give 110% at everything you do” my teammate replied. Coincidentally, my coach questioned the very phrase I had been questioning for years, “Do you think you can give 110% in this next sprint?” Whether the question was rhetorical or not, my teammates and I stayed quiet knowing that a wrong answer could potentially lead to another set of lines. He nodded and explained what it meant to be intentional: If you have 100% of yourself to give, always give 100%, if you have been practicing for two hours, your lungs are burning, and your legs feel as if they might fall off and you only have about 20% left to give, then give that whole 20%. To be intentional is to give 100% of your best even if that best is less than 100%.
Since then, I have always tried to live by this advice even though, I will admit, I don’t always practice it (sometimes a nap just sounds a lot better than a lab report). As a college student, being intentional is a hard to do but I have never questioned whether or not it was important in every aspect of my life. My greatest achievements are those that I have put time and effort into rather than a couple of minutes of careless work. To be intentional, to me means that I have to want to succeed and with that, not hold a single ounce of effort back that could be have been given. I want to be known for giving my very best at everything I put my mind to. I want to be known for being intentional.
If I had one piece of advice to give, it would be to live intentionally. Walking through the motions of life is superficial, when we live in a world where depth and detail matter. In the moment it may seem easier to complete shallow work but in the long run, shallow work will not carry you to where you want to be. It’s not easy to put out your best effort in everything, but it is far from impossible. Always give 100% of your best and nothing less. Always be intentional.
