Sometimes things don’t go as planned. You think everything is trucking along and life surprises you. Humbles you.
It’s a good reminder to appreciate what you have. We complain about the simplest of things. We don’t take the time to say, ‘thank you’. We focus on the negative instead of all the positives.
Meanwhile there is so much to appreciate and value. And this is what we should focus on.
We’ve all heard the phrase, “If at first you don’t succeed… try, try again.”
That’s the right idea but the wrong language. It should be, “If at first you don’t succeed… iterate, iterate again.”
Because we all know another saying too, “Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing again and again, and expecting a different result.”
We don’t need to try again, we need to iterate, again and again… Tweak, adapt, adjust, fine-tune, modify, tailor, refine, reshape, alter, and/or calibrate. And to do all this we need to embrace failure as learning.
Trying the same thing again just won’t do.
I heard a great quote today, ‘Nobody will ever love you exactly the way you want… Because that’s your job.’
It reminds me of an insightful question, “Would you hang out with a person who speaks to you the way you speak to yourself?’
We can be our own worst critics, and yet it costs us nothing to appreciate ourselves rather than put ourselves down. That doesn’t mean that we don’t strive to be better. It’s not about accepting mediocrity. It is however an opportunity for us to find value and appreciation in who we are and what we accomplish.
It starts with acceptance, and ultimately self-love. There are enough critics in the world, it doesn’t make sense that the one you hear the most is yourself. It’s ultimately your job to love you first. And when you’ve humbly, yet sincerely achieved that, the love of others is sure to follow.
Watch this leadership lesson I just found on Instagram:
I can’t help but think about how important this is not just in business/leadership roles, but also in teaching. The best teachers guide students. Teachers are the compass: “A compass doesn’t point the way, it points north and guides the student on their own journey.”
We lose sight of learning when we focus on teaching courses and not students. We lose our bearings when the curriculum is more important than the learner. We are completely lost when we teach to the test.
Watch the video again, and think of the times you led a challenging student rather than faced off with them. Like the time you put the ‘trouble-maker’ in charge because you had to leave the room for a couple minutes… knowing he would keep things in line for you but would cause problems if a peer was left in charge of him. Or the time you metaphorically threw a lesson out the window because students felt lost and you were not getting the learning across. Or when you sat with a kid to do 5 homework questions, letting them know that if they did that with you, they wouldn’t have to do any of the remaining homework.
Are you the guiding compass or the bossy captain? Are you facilitating learning or trying to push learning down their throats? Are you building resistance and conflict or resilience and trust?
A few days ago I did something I’ve never been able to do. I stood up, bent over at the waist, and was able to not just touch my toes, but touch the floor. I just stopped writing this to try again just now and I wasn’t even close. The difference is that I did a good 10 minute stretch before the time I actually achieved this.
I’ll try again today after I’m warmed up. I have been stretching my hamstrings more than usual for quite a few months to get to this point. But I am probably years away from being able to touch my toes ‘cold’, without any warm up. Yet I am still appreciative of the gains I have made.
In every aspect of life, it’s good to stretch yourself!
It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of the school year. As I reflect back the year seems to be a blur.
The older I get the greater time warps. Looking forward, future events can seem so far away, then looking back the same amount of time can seem like it was just yesterday. A week to wait for something can seem like forever, yet a month can fly by… even if that month included a week that felt like forever.
I often wonder if our brains get affected by our age, not just from a metabolic standpoint but from our perspective. To a 10 year old 5 years is half of a lifetime. To a 50 year old it’s just 10%. So now that I’m in my late 50’s, a year can fly by as a somewhat insignificant amount of time.
It just reminds me to appreciate each day. To find in each day a moment worth remembering, with reflecting on. Or at least a moment worth enjoying. Take away these moments and the days, weeks, and even years slip by… almost unnoticed.
We live in time warps, where the perception of time fluctuates. If we don’t want time to disappear on us, it’s up to us to spend time wisely, and meaningfully.
We need to create moments, not seize them, but rather savour them, find joy in them, and cherish them.
A day, a week, a month from now…
A year, a decade, a lifetime from now…
Will you remember this day?
When you call a sibling, text a friend, video chat with a kid or a parent…
When you go to a birthday, an anniversary, a reunion…
Will a memory from today come up in conversation?
What separates today from the many days before, now long forgotten?
Of course if every day were truly memorable, it would be unlikely that we could recall them all, and peak experiences do not feel like they are special if they occur every day… but the question still holds, “Will you remember this day?”
If not, what can you do to make it more than just another forgotten day?
We learn from our mistakes… if we let ourselves.
The problem is that often when we should admit we are wrong we double down, we get defensive, we justify with bias.
Double down or learn. We can’t go both.
Although that’s not totally true. We can do both, just not simultaneously. We can double down in the heat of the moment, reflect later, recognize our error, and make amends, admit our error, and hopefully learn.
But learning is a whole lot easier, and less confrontational, when we can admit our error before putting our back up and defending it.
It’s not just better for us, it’s better for everyone around us… and we learn, and grow, and maybe spend a little less time doubling down to defend our errors in the future.
Conversation 1
I was talking to a parent interested in bringing her child to our school. But he also wanted a chance to play sports at a big high school and because BC School Sports has treated our tiny program unfairly, he can’t play with them if he joins our program, which is too small to field a team.
His mom really wants him to come to our school, but doesn’t want him to lose out on playing sports in his catchment school. I reminded her that the big high school he wants to go to is an excellent school, and that he is going to get a good education at whichever school he chooses.
I said, I know that this is a tough decision to make, but it’s a good decision either way.
Conversation 2
A student I had previously spoken to had mentioned that he wanted to go to a school that’s out of the Vancouver Lower Mainland, and that if he did, he was going to live in residence. I told him that my experience with living in residence was really wonderful and that I’d recommend it.
A few days later he came back to me and said that he thought about it more and financially it didn’t make sense for him to spend most of his school budget on his first year just so he could go away and live in residence.
So, I told him that while my wife and I both loved the experience, and recommended it to our oldest daughter, she enjoyed residence living the least of any of her 4 years at school. And, my youngest daughter chose a school where she commuted from home and enjoyed her first year quite a bit.
I explained that while it’s a good choice to make for many, it’s not for everyone and you can have a great first year with or without living in residence.
Conversation 3
I had a student explain to me that she got into the top two programs she wanted and she couldn’t decide which one she really wanted. She gave me a couple reasons why she wanted both programs and said she really didn’t know which way to go.
Paraphrasing my simple reply, I said, ‘What a great problem to have! I know this isn’t easy, but of all the dilemmas you could be going through, this one is a pretty good one!’
—
Sometimes even the good decisions are hard to make. It’s important to keep this in perspective and not stress as much as when the decision is more challenging and stress inducing.
The other advice I often give in all three of these conversations is that once you make the decision, jump in with both feet! When you finally decide, be firm with your decision, and don’t look back. Instead, think and believe that you made the right decision, at the right time… and give that choice 100% of your effort. Remember that you had a hard, but good decision to make, and whatever choice you made was right for you!
I started my current health & fitness routines in January, 2019. Six plus years later I can really see and feel the results. But if I go back 2 or 3 years, I’d have said that progress felt slow. It was.
Slow, and steady, and other than when I herniated a disc and was in pain for several months (unrelated to my working out), always in the right direction. In other words for almost the full 6 years I’ve seen steady progress. Now at 57, I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. My cardio was better in my 20’s when I was training in the gruelling sport of water polo, but even now my cardio is quite good.
My point is that too often we look for the fast results and the quick fixes. Seldom do we accept that healthy progress is built on good habits over long periods of time. The quest for instant results is unrealistic, and often results in inconsistent outcomes or fluctuations between improvements and losses of gains.
Good habits, consistency, and a willingness to keep going even when the results aren’t immediately obvious are whet leads to long term progress. In the end the real progress, the real fruits of your labour, are the lifestyle changes that keep you feeling young and healthy. You are on a marathon not a sprint. Work on your habits and routines and the results will come over time.
