A lot of times we will do our best and fail. That failure will stick with us because we know that we put our absolute best effort into an interview, a task, an assignment, a test, etc and we still failed. We let that failure consume us and tell us that our best isn't enough, but the truth is - your best is more than enough.
When you really do try your hardest and do something to the best of your ability you can walk out in full confidence and say "I know I did my best and that is what I needed to do." Sometimes your best isn't enough to get an A on a test or to get you the job that you wanted, but you can learn from that and grow from that. It is easy to walk into something and not try, but when you do that you walk out completely unsure of where you might end up.
People define you on your product, which is important, but in order for you to have a good product you also have to have a good intention. Your best effort will not be defined as enough because people don't always get to see effort, they only see product. They don't see the hours you spend preparing or the time you take to do a job, they only see what is finished. But the awesome thing about doing your best, especially when you fail is that you can go back and look at exactly what went wrong and fix it for the next time. You have the ability to say "okay, this is where I went wrong so that led to this and now I know how to do better." You are able to find success despite your mess up.
A lot of times people will just get lucky with the things they do and while that is so awesome for them, that same result is expected the next time. We don't grow from luck, either. We grow from trial and error and more and more error. We are able to see results in our success and failure.
