Blogging Every Day

Good thing I didn't make a New Year's Resolution to blog every day or I would have failed already. Or would I? Think about it for a minute. If I had made a New Year's resolution to blog every day, would I have already failed?

Well sure Diana, you missed yesterday. I can see it by the dates.

If you answered yes, I disagree and here's why. Making a resolution is about making a decision about a final outcome that you will achieve, it does not indicate that you won't make a misstep along the way. You WILL make a misstep or two.

If there is one concept that I think held me back in life, it was this notion that getting something wrong was a big deal.

How many did you get wrong on the math test?

"FIVE WRONG? I got them ALL right."

No not me, I wasn't so obnoxious. But other than the fact that the comment was rude, I wouldn't have seen anything wrong with it. After all it was about how many you got right versus how many you got wrong, wasn't it? Isn't it?

The problem with such thinking is that often you choose to not stretch yourself at all. You risk little and feel badly about your "failures" or "missteps" (the word I prefer).

Yesterday I attended a meeting about a program at work where people can make proposals (I'm purposely avoiding the specifics as it would reveal info on the company). I had heard of this program before and had never bothered with it. The payoff is fairly modest for getting a proposal accepted and I didn't have any ideas that I thought were particulary likely to get approved. But then I was stunned by one fact in the presentation. The people who to date have any significant number of proposals approved, only have a 50% approval rating. Despite all their successes and experience, they are still "failing" half the time. But, because they obviously don't mind those rejected proposals, they continue to make new proposals and have enough approved that the payoff actually becomes significant. So no, it isn't always about how many you got right versus how many you got wrong. Sometimes it's just about how many you get right.

So propose something, even to yourself. Got for it. If it doesn't work, who cares. No one is keeping score. If anyone does keep score and remind you of your failings/missteps, tell them to get a life. Or tell them to read about Edison and comment that lucky for all of us who like electric lights, he didn't have anyone in his life pointing out all his missteps, or if he did, he ignored them.