One of the things I’ve always told my children is “do your best.”  This is especially important when we are working as part of a team.  We each bring different skills and ideas to the team, and each person’s contribution is important.  A team with all its members contributing fully has the potential to become better than the sum of its parts.  Synergy is created because the weaknesses of one person are cancelled out by the strengths of another.

We’ve all been part of a team that included someone who didn’t do their best. Someone didn’t contribute, failed to do their homework, didn’t practice, or just didn’t care.  Maybe we were that person.  The truth is, we all fall into one of these categories occasionally.  Life can get in the way of our best intentions.  This is OK as long as we don’t consistently let our teammates down.  If we can’t do our best most of the time though, maybe we need to consider leaving the team.

Sometimes we try our best but our team doesn’t.   This is frustrating to say the least.  Part of trying our best in a case like this is to speak to our team and ask for their full contribution.  If we have tried our best and still feel frustrated, there may be a reason we need to leave.   Someone else might need to take our spot on the team so they can make their contribution.  There may be another team that needs our contribution to become their best.  Don’t be afraid of this kind of change.  As we grow, we need our team to grow with us.  If they won’t or can’t, we need to move on to the next thing God has planned for us.