Personal BestEveryone in the country has favourite memories from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Now there’s a chance to capture the spirit of that amazing time by taking part in Britain’s Personal Best.

In 2012, we met some Superhumans, saw the Queen skydiving with James Bond, and cheered on 29 British Gold Medal winners – including boxer Nicola Adams’ Gold medal win (and winning smile). There were 70,000 volunteers and 10,000 street parties. Wouldn’t it be great to do it again?

‘This is Operation Magnificent’

Musa Okwonga’s poem for the Britain’s Personal Best launch video captures some of the excitement and power of setting a ‘personal best’. Across Britain, people have already inhaled “a lungful of hope” and are planning to walk or run, to learn or lose weight, to test their limits . First-time volunteers are joining new fund-raisers. One group will plant flowers in their local high street. A young man wants to write his will while another, Martyn Sibley, is using his will to undertake an epic 1100-mile journey from John O’Groats to Lands End…in a wheelchair.

As an individual or organisation, this is a chance to do something remarkable: “to succeed at anything your self-doubt said you weren’t meant to.” There’s a useful deadline to focus on, too: the Big Weekend.

Throughout Britain, people on October 4th, 5th & 6th this year will be deciding to pledge, or designing their own – or their organisation’s – ‘personal best’, starting training or sharing their dream, encouraging others to join in or doing their personal best. But as Musa’s poem wisely observes:

‘Know this –

The best part of your effort

Is the one no one else will notice.’

But you will – and that’s what counts. “It’s that small twist in the chest / that says Yes instead of No.”

It matters to Jill Poet, Managing Director of the Organisation for Responsible Businesses (ORB), who has set her destination to a Personal Best of raising at least £1000 for local organisations with the first event at the Double Whammy Networking project she’s launching in October.

Britain’s Personal Best is a wonderful opportunity for responsible businesses to find their own ‘personal best’, to join in at the same time as aligning their core values with staff and customers, family and friends: above all, with the individual inside us all that dares to dream. Leaving only one question on the table:

What’s Yours?