Episode Details
Back to EpisodesEP 306: Chasing Perfect Keeps the Eating Disorder Alive ~ Here's How to Break Free (Four Agreements Series ~ Part 4)
Description
We made it, sis — the finale of our Four Agreements series. If you've walked through these with me — impeccable with your word, don't take it personally, don't make assumptions — I am so proud of you. Today we bring it all home.
And I saved my favorite for last, because this fourth agreement holds a word that means everything to me — it's literally the name of this show. The fourth agreement is: always do your best.
Not perfect. Your best. And by the end of today, I hope you feel the weight of perfection lift right off your shoulders — because chasing perfect is exactly what keeps the eating disorder alive, and your best? Your best is enough.
(New here? Go back to Parts 1–3 first — they build to this.)
This is the agreement that makes the others stickThis one comes last for a reason: it's the engine. Doing your best is what allows the other three agreements to become habits. You don't master speaking truth, releasing what others think, or dropping assumptions in a day — you do your best with them today, then again tomorrow, and slowly they become who you are.
This agreement isn't about knowing. It's about action. Because information isn't enough — doing your best is how the knowing becomes the living.
Not perfection — excellenceDoing your best is not being perfect. Perfect is a moving target that doesn't exist — and the eating disorder is obsessed with it, moving the goalposts so your best is never enough. Chasing perfect keeps the disorder alive, because perfect can never be reached, so you can never rest.
Your best is different. Your best is excellence — showing up, in alignment with your values, as fully as you can today. And here's the freeing part: your best won't always look the same. Your best in the morning is different than your best at night. Your best on a strong day is different than on a hard day. Both count. When you're exhausted, rest is your best. When you're depleted, nourishing yourself is your best. You're not failing when your best looks different — you're being human.
Your best includes rest and graceDoing your best means rest. You'll be productive, yes — but you'll also be good to yourself and to others. The disorder's version of "your best" is grind, punish, earn, never stop. That's not your best, sis — that's self-abandonment in a productivity costume.
Real best-doing means taking action because you want to be healthy — not chasing a reward, not running from fear. It means nourishing instead of avoiding, honoring instead of punishing. And when you do your best from love instead of fear, something incredible happens: you learn to accept yourself. No judgment. No guilt. Because you know you showed up as fully as you could — and that is enough.
Your best gets betterHere's the hope: your best isn't static. As you build better habits — as the first three agreements take root — your best gets better. The woman doing her best today, scared and shaky and imperfect, is building the woman whose best a year from now is steadier, freer, stronger.
You're not behind. You're in practice. You're growing. Every time you do your best, you're not just getting through the day — you're becoming her.
From love, not obligationIf you take action because you have to — dreading it, out of pure obligation — you're better off not taking it at all. So much of what the disorder drives is have to: have to work out, have to eat clean, have to earn it. That's not doing your best — that's obeying a cage.
Your best flows from want to: I want to be healthy, I want to be free, I want to be here for my life. And you can't do your best while living in the past or the future