4 Things to Remember When Making Better New Mistakes …

“Experience is what helps you make an old mistake in a new way.”

Source:  Unknown (at least to me)

I find this statement oddly comforting …

When I was younger, I believed that I could get all the parts of my life into perfect order, all at the same time, and I would be good:).    All my clothes new at the same time, exercising and eating healthy every day, friendly to all and loving to my family, plus not wasting money, and so on and so on.

I no longer hold this out as a realistic possibility …

Maybe it’s because I know the rhythm of “I can’t believe I just screwed up … again.”  I’ve made mistakes, sometimes more than once, but more often exactly like the quote says.  I screw up in new ways that remind me of old ways.

Maybe we need to think more about how to apply our knowledge from past experiences to those new ones.  

What is similar between what I’ve done and what lies ahead of me?

What is different now?

What should I have done then that I can do now?

What do I just need to stop doing?

Life is full of opportunities to mess up and will continue so until the day you die.   Get used to it.

At least if you make new mistakes, you won’t get bored because you are doing the “Same Old, Same Old“:)

Making new and better mistakes every day in the Heartland ….

John

Acknowledgement:  Graphic from Harsh Singh through Relax and Unwind on Facebook.

Excuses and Explanations …

Excuses

An excuse describes something that happened to prevent you from accomplishing a task. completing a process, or achieving an objective.

Explanations

An explanation provides the reason that I did not accomplish a task, complete a process, or achieve that objective.

Knowing the difference between the two is essential to two other things:  Goals and Fixes.

Goals

What task you are trying to accomplish, what process you are attempting to complete, or what overall objective you wish to achieve.

Fixes

What you do to make sure you accomplish that task, complete that process, and achieve that goal.

Nothing complicated about the above, aside from our very human tendency to do the following:

1)  “I gotta get to work on time.”:  Fail to clearly describe the goal.

2)  “I ran out of gas”:  Provide only an excuse when you fail to reach your goal.

3)  “I dunno …”:  Ignore or provide only a partial explanation for your failure.

4)  “I gotta do better tomorrow”:  Do the same thing tomorrow and expect different results.

Try this instead:

The Goal: ” I will systematically drop those things which would prevent me from arriving at work on time or early, and reduce those which I cannot eliminate.”  

The Excuse: “I ran out of gas”

The Explanation:  “I forgot to check the gas level in the car before I took off.”

The Fix:  “Until I make it second nature, I will keep a 3×5 card on my dashboard reminding me to check the gas first.”

Nothing above approaches rocket science, but these are very useful suggestions to improve the quality of your thinking and your doing.

Trying to remember to always have a fix in the Heartland ….

John

Related articles

• Leaders, Are You Listening for Explanations or Excuses? (whyleadnow.com)
• Stop Making Excuses (sanderssays.typepad.com)
• No Excuses (mindywillis.wordpress.com)
• No More Excuses (abriellev.wordpress.com)
• Excuses…. (tsvandenberg.wordpress.com)
• No Excuses (solo-e.com)

Of Evil and Expedience …

“No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.”

Theodore Roosevelt  The Century: Volume 60 (1900) pg. 215.

This Roosevelt is one of my favorite Republicans and Presidents.  I like the other President Roosevelt too:)

Okay, maybe you are not doing anything truly “evil”.

Maybe you’re just cutting corners to save a little time or a few bucks.

Maybe you just do a quick inspection, rather than critique something in-depth.

Maybe you just take the path of least resistance, because you don’t like to deal with resistance.

What are you doing just because of expediency, instead of taking the time to do it right?

Waiting patiently for your soul-searching to bear fruit in the Heartland ….

John

 

NOTES:

This is number 18 in the list of 100 most popular quotes, at least according to great-quotes.com.  I am working my way to the top of the list.

 

From Great-quotes.com:  From a piece titled “Latitude and Longitude among reformers,” Roosevelt continues, “He is bound to do all the good possible. Yet he must consider the question of expediency, in order that he may do all the good possible, for otherwise he will do none.”