When was the last time you just gave up? It may have been a lot more recent than you want to admit. Yet we have all failed and with that failure, we have decided that it was better to just give up and count our losses. That has probably happened once or more times this year.
As you look at the calendar you are seeing that the year has ended and the new year has begun. Maybe you made an off-hand remark about what your resolution was going to be or maybe you have sworn off making resolutions because all you do is remind yourself that you suck at resolutions.
So what if you changed how you looked at goals? What if you changed how you see a goal as something that just proves to yourself that you can’t commit to that was just a learning experience? Then you climb back on the horse and tried again.
The New Year is anytime
We often like to have a fresh swing at turning our lives around and see if we can grab that brass ring. The New Year is just one of those times it is just the typical starting spot. However, I would pose a different idea your way. The year is nothing more than a circle. It is an arbitrary time that we mark as we circumnavigate the sun. So We can mark a new year at any time we want.
That means if you said you were going to go to the Gym 3 times a week on January 1 and you noticed that you have missed two weeks by Jan 20th. You can actually move the start of the year to Jan 20th and start again.
Now That may be a blow to the ego because you are used to chalking that up as a failed attempt and you now have permission to not try anymore. If that is what you think you will not grow. You will not find the solution you are after. You will only stay in your small cave wishing you had nicer digs. You will not make it till you realize that when you fail you start over.
This concept is present in many different self-improvement programs. Quit smoking, if you light up your quit date changes to the new time you try to quit. My quit date was Oct 2012 till January 2020 came along then it shifted to Oct 2022.
AA is the same way you don’t get a chip if you fall off the wagon. You only get one for the major milestones.
Andy Frisella’s 75 Hard, if you miss a day of Reading 10 pages, drinking a gallon of water, and exercising 2x a day with one of those times being outside. If you don’t take a selfie and stick to a diet you start over. The trick is to do that for 75 days. It is a good exercise in building grit.
So when you fail at anything you want to do stop allowing it to be your permission to get comfortable again.
So what if I fail?
As mentioned earlier get up dust yourself off and try again. Rinse and repeat. So what if you fail? Who gonna care if you didn’t do it? The truth no one. The only person it really matters to is you, and you have been letting yourself down for a while now. So Do you want to stay out of integrity or are you finally deciding that it is time to get your butt in gear?
Your failures don’t carry over. Remember you start from day 0 when you fail. So the only thing you need to carry with you from the previous attempt is that you have better clarity as to where the failure occurred.
So what if you failed? Failure doesn’t have any power over you. You have power over what that failure means. So it is that you are a worthless piece of crap, or that you are a human learning how to be better? Failures are actually good. You can and need to look at failures as something to celebrate. Don’t worry about the wins they will pay off as they happen. The failures though you have to stop whopping up on yourself like that. That is why you avoid failures as much as you do. You believe you are supposed to get into trouble because you failed. No, You are supposed to learn when you fail.
Take time to review
When you realize that you are no longer doing what you wanted to do Look back and see if you can tell when you stopped trying. Why did you stop trying? Learn as much about the circumstance as you can and then realize that it wasn’t the circumstance that was holding you back. That circumstance wasn’t why you quit trying. It was your thoughts about that circumstance that really put the kibosh on your efforts.
What were your thoughts about the circumstance that caused you to stop? This is where your living with intention comes into play. You can either start intentionally paying attention to your thoughts or you can sit around and wonder why. Till you start watching what you think you will find yourself wondering what to do.
Ask Questions
Yep time to start talking to yourself again. However, there is a big question that you want to ask yourself anytime you find yourself stuck in a loop, or you are wondering why something went horribly off the rails. That question is, What does this make possible?
This question will help you to find the bright side of the event. Because even disaster can have a good outcome if you frame the issue right. Now some people would like to call this toxic positivity. If you are allergic to the positive line of thinking then I would agree it is. If you just want to wallow in your own self pitty then yeah this could also be something toxic. While if you can find what the problem makes possible you are able to dig yourself out of the hole more quicker.
Why did you not go further?
What kept you from completing your goal? What is keeping you from being able to complete the task you assigned yourself? Look at what you are wanting to accomplish and try your best in answering this question. Why did you not accomplish your goal? Those reasons are the thoughts you are having that are actually holding you back. You can shift those thoughts. You can look at what you are wanting to accomplish and by examining your thoughts about that task you can see why you are failing.
What is there to learn from this?
Your failure point is what you want to look for. Why did you not keep going? Was it too hard? Did you choose a bad time during the day? Was Your wife making demands that kept you from completing your goal?
Any and all of these excuses are possible however you have to learn how to handle the thoughts about that circumstance. What about going to the gym was too hard? Keep answering til you find the truth to the problem.
Bad time of the day? What is a good time? Why not go then?
Your wife is making odd requests out of nowhere? That could be her own anxiety that is manifesting itself and you have to learn to work around it. It may be that you are just going to have to set a boundary that you are going to the gym each day after work or before work. Whenever you can normally find a reasonable solution to the problem if you are intentional enough to address the issues.
Make a Plan and review it.
This is the biggest point and that is to make a plan and review when you fail. Review when you succeed. Review each day and each night. If something isn’t working then adjust and try again. The adjustments are important because if you are going off course you want to know as soon as possible not 5000 miles away from where you were supposed to be.
What is Possible?
Now I want to ask the big question, what is possible in your world? Have you ever actually allowed yourself to dream? Do you ever wonder where the desire to build your dreams comes from? The answer to all those questions that you could possibly ask is inside your head. You just have to start trying to answer them.
The Question, What if, allows you to dream. It allows you to start expanding, looking at all the possibilities. But to do that, you have to give yourself permission to actually dream. Without doing that, you’re going to Bob in the water you’re going to float from place to place, and never make it to port. You’re never going to get to your destination. You have to see where you are and then review to measure how far you’ve made it. That’s how you measure your goals.
that process is what scares most people from even trying to fulfill their calling. Becoming successful, having money in the bank, having a loving wife and incredible marriage takes work. I am sure you are saying something to the tune of No D’uh! Yet if it was so well known then why don’t more people succeed in life? It’s because they may know but they don’t apply.
if you want to be able to find all that’s possible, you have to do one thing that’s dream. Then take those dreams to decide which ones are the most important and make the plan. Do that over and over and over. Keep doing that until you reach the level you want. Then step past that level.
what is possible? Everything is possible in your world. I am one of those people who if you hang around long enough I’ll get you to believe you can do anything. Do you wanna be a millionaire? You could be a millionaire. How? That is the rub, we figure it out.
If you want help finding out your full potential and then actually taking the action needed then please Sign up for a consult call and let’s see where the rabbit hole goes.
