Assuming you only leave the house to grab the mail, you probably get the question “How are you doing?” at least once a day. (I started with an assumption and I am not sorry.) What is the most common answer you hear to this question? I hear “good” and “fine.” Do we want to be better than “fine” and “good?”

Camera + and me

A coworker at my first job would get “fine” as an answer and gently remind them they were doing better than “fine.” I do not remember specifically what he would say, but it was along the lines of, “Just fine, not good, not great?” He would then saw how they walked into into the store and able to do different things.

A while ago I heard the the answer, “Good and getting better” and have used it as my default answer. It is the best answer I have heard and it fits comfortably with me. The “and getting better” part that I truly enjoy, because the “getting better” shows growth.  It is a reminder to me to that I am growing and the answer catches peoples attention even in the quickest interactions.  I flipped through one of Zig Ziglar’s book See You at the Top and found a happy caricature proclaiming, “I’m super-good, but I’ll get better.” I should jump ship to the S.S. “Super-Good,” but I have not fully adopted the message of his book. I agree with everything in it, but as I have mentioned before, “Momentum is created by starting.” I do not feel I have started enough… Personally, I want to have more momentum before I be aboard the S.S. Super Good. I do want to be on that ship though. So what will be after the S.S. Super Good?

Getting ready to put the final touches on this post and hitting publish, I realized I never mentioned why I find this important. As Zig Ziglar said in See You at the Top, “…whatever we put into our mind is going to come out of it.” If “fine” and “alright” is what declare to strangers and family and friends throughout the day, how will we improve to “good.”  A few pages later Ziglar says, “Assume a trait or characteristic, and later you will possess it. You will grab it-then it will grab you.” You are not be a ________, but go ahead and try it.

I used to not be a reader, but after hearing the importance of it and realizing I wanted to be a reader and now read at least a book a month. I will admit, sitting down and reading is not the same to me as sitting down and watching a movie, but I realized how much I can learn and enjoy reading on many different levels.

What is your default answer to the question, “How are you doing?”