We get plenty of advice on how to live our days. I hear these four the most:

Live every day as if it was your last:

This is the advice you want to hear when you’re young. Adventure, thrills, travel, sex, drugs. When you believe today is your last day you feel freed to do all the things you were afraid to do before, like jump off tall buildings, tell someone they’re a dickhead or ride a crazy horse. The results of these “last day” actions are often costly, but hey, who cares, it’s your last day and you won’t be here tomorrow. Good morning – oops!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life:

When you need a reason to move forwards and start again this is the advice freely thrown around. When you feel that you can discard your mistakes, forget about your past actions or inactions and walk on to a new life, you may find you’ve left behind important people and learnings. The freedom from the past is short-lived and ignoring what got you here, won’t get you somewhere else!

Today is the worst day:

For some people life is hard. When everything is going wrong, the red tape is overwhelming (I live in Spain, I know what I’m talking about), people don’t understand you or you have illness or death in your life, then each day may feel worse than the last. Your feelings of sadness, depression or overwhelm often result in further problems, creating a cycle of downward despair.

Only my best is good enough for me:

If every day were your best you’d forgive quickly, make love, kiss everyone (especially puppies), smile at strangers, eat well, enjoy a glass of wine, exercise with friends, do your best work, make a difference, call your mom, be lovely. These actions would produce awesome results – people would be drawn to you, emulate you, want to share their lives with you. Or they might want to give you a clip upside the head for being so damn perfect!

My advice? Make today your best day, every day…