There is a well-studied psychology intervention called “Best Possible Self,” and as you can imagine, it’s downright dreamy. You sit down with your beverage of choice (MAKE MINE A DOUBLE), and you follow these instructions:

‘‘Think about your life in the future. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realisation of all your life dreams. Now write about what you imagined.”

Sounds like fun, right? It’s inherently positive and searingly insightful and also? For people like me? It can be scarifying (scary + horrifying; keep up). Sometimes I don’t have a clear vision of “all my life goals” (I’m prone to revision) and then I feel like I’m bad at life for not having a well-defined picture of what my best possible self looks like.

My vision board looks a lot like this:

Oh, the irony: a Best Possible Self exercise makes me feel like my Worst Deadbeat Self.

What if the pursuit of the “Best” in the Best Possible Life is stopping us in our tracks? What if we tempered this a bit, just to take the pressure off? 

I was catching up with my friend Kristin the other day and she casually referred to the “preferred” version of herself. (As in, the preferred version of her was a gardener, growing all sorts of healthy food in her backyard. But she is a busy gal and had to recalibrate the dream; she buys fresh food from a market instead and just sits in a well-landscaped backyard. She’s happy with that and there was no self-flagellation for not being an award winning eggplant grower.) (Do they give out prizes for growing the biggest eggplants? Gardening… it’s so dirty 🤭.)

I shared with Kristin that my preferred version of myself did yoga. I do not do yoga. I think my body might appreciate some yoga. While I’d prefer to be the type who does downward dogs with ease, for now I am okay with not living up to that version of me. I don’t feel like a failure when I position my desire as a preference, rather than criteria for crushing this whole best self business.

I realize I just chose two examples of capable people not delivering on their ideas for themselves. Am I advocating for us to throw in the towel of life? No! Maybe, if it’s the wrong towel? No, this it’s about releasing the pressure to be our BEST selves, to live our BEST possible lives, to compete against ourselves (and maybe others) to be THE BEST. I am sort of done with THE BEST and its amped up insistence on all this best-ness. It’s exhausting to even type about besting.

How about the Preferred Possible Self? How about preferred notions we have for ourselves that are perhaps more charitable if and when we don’t deliver? Preferred feels forgiving. Best feels like a Russian gymnastics coach. Am I splitting hairs here with words? Yes, and my Preferred Possible Self doesn’t give a dang if you think that’s silly. (I think I just used the word “dang”?) We’ve spoken before about the difference of goals vs dreams and so you’re well aware that terminology matters.

So if this list of you at your Olympic-level, tip-top best feels demotivating, let it go. Write down a list of “suggestions, musings, recommendations, and invitations for the me I’d like to be” and see if that’s any more inspiring.

Maybe one day I will heed the call of the yoga mat. Nah… that’s just the double drink talking.