Posts Tagged ‘failure’

Epic Fail: New Year’s Resolutions in April

Posted: 9 April, 2012 in Leadership, Personal Development
Tags: , , , , ,
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I know I’m not supposed to be talking about New Year’s Resolutions right now, but since we just finished celebrating Easter, I thought the timing was about right to address all of the new-year’s-resolution failures that have probably already occurred at this point.

Lose 10 pounds – already lost it and gained it back… twice
Read the Bible in a year – got stuck in Leviticus and gave up
Workout 5x per week – gym membership has been collecting dust on the dresser for a month
Ask out that cute guy/girl you’ve been interested in – already engaged… to someone else.

Sound familiar?

Why do our annual resolutions fail?
 

1. We fail to plan. No matter how great our intentions are, our human nature requires us to implement a specific step-by-step process if we expect to make a notable change in our habits. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.

2. We bite off more than we can chew. Our culture regularly overestimates what can be accomplished in a day and underestimates what can be accomplished in a year. Therefore, each day when we fail to meet our own expectations, we get discouraged and come one step closer to quitting. Set a single monthly goal with weekly benchmarks to determine whether you are on track or not . Seriously, do it! A single month’s success will inspire you for the rest of the year!

3. We don’t have any accountability. Whom have you told about your goal? Your dog or cat doesn’t count! If nobody knows what you’re trying to accomplish, how can they give you a swift kick in the pants when you need it? I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to criticism, tell them what you plan to do, and then give them free reign to call you out.

4. We don’t create rewards. If the goal is the only reward, it can sometimes be difficult to stay motivated. By adding incremental rewards, I find myself more excited about small victories.

This is one I’m experimenting with right now…

April’s goal: 500 hits/week on this blog for 2 weeks in a row.
Reward: $100 financial investment in this blog.
Current Status: 344 hits last week.

Thanks for reading the post. If you’re a subscriber, I’ll keep you updated. :)

Image: iwolkow.de under CC BY-SA 2.0

I Have No Regrets

Posted: 3 April, 2012 in Leadership, Personal Development
Tags: , , , , ,
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I often ask people what their goals are in life, and I’ve noticed a trend of people saying that they want to “live with no regrets.” That phrase has a ring to it. I think all of us would agree that a life with no regrets sounds like a life worth living. It gives off a sense of adventure and risk. It inspires us to live the life we’ve always dreamed of and encourages us to pursue our passions with reckless abandon… doesn’t it?

In reality, it seems that those who attempt to live with no regrets are often petrified with indecision. Instead of accomplishing something, they spend their life trying to avoid accomplishing nothing. By design, living a life of risk implies the possibility of failure. In fact, the vast majority of those who have succeeded in life will tell you about the inordinate number of failures that predicated their success.

If that is true, does ‘living with no regrets’ mean we’re afraid of failure?

I think it might.

We are so afraid of failing at life that we try to preempt it. We play it safe, avoid the road less traveled, and hope we can make the right decision every single time along the way. But it’s impossible! So we fail. Then we beat ourselves up because we regret the decisions we made that ultimately led to failure. We promised ourselves we wouldn’t have regrets… FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

But I think there’s another way of looking at it. To be fair, the mantra of ‘no regrets’ is one I subscribe to as well. HOWEVER, I apply it in a PAST tense rather than a FUTURE one. Let me explain.

When we look back at decisions we’ve made, we are forced to choose. Are we happy about those decisions or do we regret them? Since avoiding mistakes is impossible, this question inevitably leads to regret. But there’s a third option that must be addressed — have we LEARNED from the decision? Whether we made the right decision or not, what did we learn from it? By approaching our decisions from this perspective, we free ourselves to act now, learn later, and essentially eliminate the regret option.

I live with no regrets because I DECIDE to… not because I don’t make the same mistakes other people do. Instead of regretting a decision, I DECIDE to learn from it and apply it to the future.

Is the mantra of ‘no regrets’ actually paralyzing you from making decisions? Or is it empowering you to learn from the past and never regret it?

Image: Sean MacEntee under CC BY 2.0

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