Never lunge for the ball.
If you make a bad throw, just let it drop. Then start over.
Learning to juggle taught me how to handle life: sometimes you make a bad throw.
Sometimes you take on one too many projects. Or Murphy’s Law derails your plans.
Don’t lunge to save things. Let them drop.
Reset, and begin anew.
These are the only two results of any endeavor.
My late mentor Dan Miller sent this to me in a message years ago:
“At the beginning of each year, I set goals and plans to do things that have the potential to not work. If they fail, I learn. If they succeed, I profit. Either way, I win.”
Whenever I find myself hesitating about a decision, I re-read this. I hope it helps you, too.
No original thought from me today. Instead, a piece of wisdom I came across from Paul Graham:
“Start by picking a hard problem, and then at every decision point, take the harder choice.
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If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you’re trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you’re even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what’s the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.”
Choose the harder option and watch your quality of life explode.
Character is an unchanging foundation that supports everything else.
It’s much more important to be a person of character than it is to be successful.
(And the latter is more likely if you are the former…)
There is one particular Buddhist philosophy I’m particularly fond of:
Define success as what you already have right now.
So what do you already have that makes life worthwhile?
A loving spouse or partner?
Healthy relationships?
A car that runs?
A roof over your head?
A job that keeps you fed?
It’s even possible for those that have little or nothing. Because as the Stoics would say, you still have your mind—the one thing that cannot be harmed…
That thing that lets you make choices… Or take action.
Some of us—living in war zones or on the street—have lost everything. Even a sense of hope or safety. That cannot, and should not, be minimized.
But where there’s a mind, there’s a spark of potential.
Being stuck is rough. It can leave you with feelings of hopelessness, frustration, or even anger.
Maybe you’re in a dead-end job you can’t stand…
Or your money situation is quickly moving from bad to worse…
Maybe you don’t even know why you’re feeling stuck. All you know is you are.
So how do you break the logjam?
The good news is there are a few things you can do now that’ll help you get unstuck:
Speaking of mentors, my coach Dan Miller is hosting a free masterclass today at two different times: 1pm CDT and 7pm CDT.
And the best part? The whole thing is about getting you unstuck no matter your problem.
“5 Reasons Big Dreamers Get Stuck And How To Blast Through Them To Success”
You can register for your seat here.
If you’re tired of going it alone and want an outside perspective on your problem, I strongly encourage you to sign up.
You’ll come away with fresh ideas, a renewed sense of hope, and strategies for moving forward on your most important goals.
There’s still time to register, but it’s happening TODAY. So make sure you sign up before it’s too late.
Save your spot now by clicking here!
I’ll be there too. I hope to see you this afternoon.
The best teacher in the world is failure. Nothing teaches us more or faster than trying and failing at something.
It’s how we learn to walk. It’s how we learn to speak.
What keeps failure from becoming success is a lack of perseverance. We fail once and assume we’ll fail if we try again.
Thomas Edison failed more than 10,000 times in creating the incandescent lightbulb. But he failed differently each time.
When asked about this by a reporter, Edison said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” He implied that each failure got him closer to his eventual success.
Had he tried making his lightbulb the same way 10,000 times, he would have been living out Einstein’s definition of insanity. But he didn’t. Instead he chose to keep trying 10,000 different ways.
Failure is a reality, but it’s also a choice. We can choose to learn from it, change things up, and try again. That option will eventually lead to success.
Or we can choose to fail and accept it as a permanent part of our lives.
You’ll find life is much better when you look at failure and success as learning experiences.
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You’ve probably looked at someone who was in great shape and thought to yourself, “Man, I wish I could be like him.”
Maybe this thought crossed your mind soon after: “If I really enjoyed hours at the gym and grilled chicken and broccoli every night for dinner, I’d be fit too.”
Here’s the thing – fit people don’t necessarily enjoy spending 3-4 hours a week at the gym or eating simple, similar meals over and over again. It’s not a matter of enjoyment.
What they do is subordinate their cravings, emotions, and desires to a higher value system they establish for themselves.
People who are successful at anything do the same thing. Albert E. Gray said it best when he wrote:
“The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”
–Albert E. Gray
One of the most important lessons I learned from Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition is that when making change for your health and fitness goals, you are going to be tired; you are going to be hungry sometimes; you are going to be in a crabby mood and not want to do what is good for you. His response: “whoever said this was going to be easy?”
Successful people, whether they are successful in health or fitness, or successful in their families and careers, are just like you and me. They have the same cravings, the same desire to say “screw it all” or “I don’t want to do that” or “I’m scared I might fail/they might laugh at me/they might say no.” The only difference is they make the choice to act anyway.
They are able to do this because they want something more than the resistance is telling them they want in this very moment. They begin with the end in mind and act proactively, rather than living in and for the moment, reacting to whatever whim, craving, or feeling comes their way during any given moment.
This way of living–of choosing to do things that failures don’t want to do–can all be traced back to fundamental principles of effective living. They are embodied clearly and coherently in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Successful people subordinate their fears and momentary desires to values, principles, and a desired end-goal. They “begin with the end in mind” as Dr. Covey writes in the chapter about Habit 2.
A successful sales person probably doesn’t want to make another cold call and face the very real possibility of rejection. But she does it anyway because the end she has in mind might be a full sales pipeline, a good income to support her family, or the growth of her business (perhaps all three and more). She’s just as scared as anyone else; she still feels the butterflies in her stomach when she dials the number; but she chooses to act rather than react to the feelings of the moment.
You are a successful person already because you have the ability to do this with every task, project, and goal in your life. Realize that it’s all a matter of choice based on the end-result you desire. Envision the end you want to achieve, hold it in your mind in the moment of choice, and make decisions based on which outcomes get you closer to the end you want.
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What does it take for a Major League Baseball player to earn a spot in the MLB Hall of Fame?
It takes failure.
Not a little bit of failure – it requires failing almost two-thirds of the time.
The best baseball players who’ve ever played the sport only average a hit 3 out of 10 times they come up to bat. That means they fail at their job 7 out of 10 times. And yet we still regard them as the best.
Why then, in our own lives, do we strive so hard to avoid failure at any cost? What if the avoidance of failure is preventing us from succeeding at a level that would cause us to stand out from the pack?
We don’t learn how to succeed through books, lectures, or seminars – we learn through failure, the greatest teacher of all. The books and seminars can help us avoid mistakes committed by others who’ve walked the path before us, but we have to fail on our own, in our own way, to find what works and what doesn’t.
To paraphrase Seth Godin in his webinar a few days ago: success requires time and failure.
Failing not only teaches you lessons from which you can improve, it also makes you more resilient to future failures. Each time you fail, you build a reserve for the future, which grows your confidence and allows you to try bigger and better things the next time. It’s a cycle that only spirals up.
What could you do in your life where you would consider batting .300 to be Hall of Fame-worthy success?
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Don’t fear failure – fear never taking the chance of doing something great.
When was the last time you learned something new?
It was probably a few minutes ago when you read an article on your favorite social media site, and you weren’t even aware you were learning. Why not do it intentionally?
Learning and education don’t cease when school ends. If it does, you’ve made a choice, and you will quickly find yourself becoming obsolete.
No one cares about the degree you got 10 years ago. They want to know if you are competent in the areas needed to accomplish the kind of work you want to do.
Learning and going to school are not the same thing. You might have hated school, but you definitely love learning. School requires that you do things you hate, but you aren’t in school anymore. You can learn whatever you want to learn right now.
Always wanted to learn how to draw? Do you want to redo math, not because you have to but because you want to? Maybe you want to learn calligraphy or tennis. Perhaps you want to get a new job, but you don’t have the marketing skills needed by the company. Now is the time, and now you HAVE time.
Learning anything new is part of your ongoing education. Why not do it intentionally? What are you doing right now to invest in your own education?
I’ll give you some ideas.
There is no reason for you not to come out of this crisis with new skills, new knowledge, and an unofficial masters degree in one subject or another.
Be proactive. Take control of your education today.
Note: a few of the links above are affiliate links. I get a small commission if a purchase is made. This does not affect you in any way.
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