Wow. What a tall order. This is a seriously difficult thing to aim for – and deliberately so. If you go to work, then do your job as well as is humanly possible. If you are a parent, be the very best parent possible. If you are a gardener, be the very best gardener you can be. Because if you aren’t, then what are you aiming for? And why? If you set out to do something, anything, and you are deliberately aiming for second best, how sad is that? This Rule is really simple, really easy. Let’s take parenting, for example. What is the very best way of parenting possible? There are of course no right or wrong answers here; it’s entirely a subjective assessment. What do you think the very best parenting means? Good. Now, are you going to aim for less than that? Of course not.

And the same is true for everything you do. You aim to be the very best that you think is possible. Once you become the judge, the panel of experts, it is very easy to live up to those expectations because they are entirely yours. No one else can say whether you have failed or succeeded. No one else can set the criteria for what you are about to embark on.

Look, maybe this is a trick. If only you can judge whether you have succeeded, then obviously you are going to score 10 out of 10 every time. Aren’t you? Probably not. It is amazing how tough we are on ourselves, when no one is looking. If we are only cheating ourselves, then we realize there simply isn’t any point to it.

The most marvellous thing about setting your own standards is that no one else can judge; no one else can get their sticky little fingers on what, for you, is right or wrong, good or bad. How liberating is that? Infinitely. Having established that you’ll aim for the very best and you’ve set the standards of what that is, all you have to do is periodically check back to that standard to see how you are doing.

None of this has to be incredibly detailed. For instance, your view of being the best parent could be as simple as ‘I’ll always be there for them’. You don’t have to provide details, even if it is just for yourself, of how many times a day you’ll tell them you love them, or whether you make sure they wear clean socks every day. No, your aim is simply ‘To be there for them, always’, and that is your very, very best. Now if you fail it is only because you weren’t there for them. Failing is fine. Aiming for second best isn’t.

All you have to do is consciously think about what you are doing and then aim for that, the best. The secret is to be aware of what you are doing and have some sort of benchmark where you, and only you, monitor your performance. Make your goals, your aims, simple and obviously attainable. Make sure you know what is, for you, best and second best.