To think “doing your best” is often just a polite way of saying “not trying very hard?”

[EffortNotExcuses]

People hide behind the phrase when they don’t want to improve.

In what context op? It’s not really a one size fits all phrase, is it? Someone who’s had a leg amputated and is upset that they’re not walking on a prosthetic leg as quickly as they could? Or someone giving up after one attempt at becoming a TikTok sensation. I think it very much depends on circumstances. It’s sounds like you’re hoping for a bun fight!

Speak for yourself!

No, I think it’s a polite way of saying underachieving.

Oh bore off and run a marathon.

I didn’t mean extreme situations like illness, injury or genuinely difficult circumstances. I was more thinking about everyday things where people say “I’m doing my best” as a way of shutting down any suggestion they could try harder or improve.

Someone who is actually doing their best but feels like it's not enough will read this unnecessary little thread and feel like shit.

But you knew that, right OP?

It’s still not very clear what you mean. Do you mean that they’re lying and that whatever they’re doing isn’t actually their best?

I’ve never heard it in the context you have op.

Sometimes people know they are dropping some of the balls they are juggling, but they are hanging on for dear life trying to survive through each day. If you think they are not delivering and should be on top form in every element, that’s a quick way to have a breakdown/reach crisis point.

god no, absolutely the opposite. I used this phrase when I was coping with something utterly traumatic that many people would’ve fallen apart over - but I got through it BRILLIANTLY.

The reason I would say it is certain people always have opinions about how you should do things and “I’m doing my best” is a way of shutting them up. My life, I do it my way, couldn’t care less what you think.

That genuinely wasn’t my intention. I’m not taking about people in difficult situations who are actually trying their hardest. I meant the situations where the phrase gets used as a way to shut down any suggestion of improvement or accountability.

Obviously there are situations where someone really is doing their best and that’s all anyone can ask.

Can you give us an example?

im struggling to imagine a time when an adult would offer another adult advice on how to do better in their own lives

No, it does not mean that at all.

I also tell people they are trying their best when their life is falling apart around them and they are struggling.

Fucking hell, I hope you are not teacher or working with vulnerable people.

I don’t necessarily mean they’re lying about it. I mean situations where “I’m doing my best” gets used as a way to shut down any discussion about improving something. For example at work if someone consistently misses deadlines or produces poor work and when it’s raised they say “I’m doing my best” rather than engaging with the feedback.

How can you tell the difference, given you can't see inside the person's head?

I usually take it to mean "trying hard but still a bit shit".

Is literally how I took it.

Anytime I say it, someone is bearing down nagging at me.
Perhaps if people say it a lot to you, you should look at how you are interacting.

No, usually it means that other people are placing unachievable and unreasonable expectations on a person and that person is actually doing their best within the limits of what is achievable and what is reasonable.

I think you sound like you lack empathy.

I tend to go through life assuming that most people are 'doing their best'. Sometimes 'their best' may be a bit shit, but I find that I am happier when I accept that overall people are doing the best they can to manage to juggle all the bits in their life. The driver who cut you up might have been thinking about his sick child and not paying attention. The person who was abrupt at the till might have issues of their own. The woman who scowled at you in the street is trapped in a desperately unhappy marriage.

I think most people are not failing on purpose. They might lack the ability to do any better at that moment in time. And if they are a professional, then they are probably massively overworked and unfunded and doing what they can with ever stretched resources and time.

You can’t really know what’s going on in someone’s head, that’s true. I’m thinking more about patterns of behaviour - if someone repeatedly produces the same poor outcome and shuts down any feedback with “I’m doing my best,” it can start to feel like a way of avoiding improvement rather than genuinely trying.

When I say it I mean “I’m doing the best job I have been able to achieve in this situation and with the skills I presently have.” IME this is usually limited by poor communication from those above (ie telling me last minute something is needed, not advising me of changing deadlines or requirements).

Sounds as if you are thinking of a particular person op. What's occurring?

My managers used to say this about me.

then I complained and wrote them a letter explaining my daily life and how shit their workplace was at adjusting for disability and one of them rang me at 9am saying they’d literally not been able to sleep thinking about how hard I had it.

i’m disabled and use a wheelchair. I’ve crawled down stairs in my workplace because the lift was broken and no-one gave a shit.

in a workplace scenario is completely different. Any decent manager can easily deal with this and dispatch the excuses- if that’s what they are- with real examples and remedial actions/ support

I get what you mean @EffortNotExcuses . Usually said by loved ones who have done a half arsed job and say this when you call them out for it.

Conversation:
Me to a family member who is NT, able bodied and a suitable age to achieve this task 'why haven't you loaded the dishwasher like I asked you to do 4 hours ago'
Lazy family member who has clearly spent the last 4 hours playing computer games/on tik tok/sleeping 'Don't be such a nag, I'm doing my best'.

I've got decades of management experience and have never heard this phrase at work, and certainly never from someone who struggles with a task due to being too old/young, ND or physically incapacitated in some way.