5 Simple Mind Hacks That Changed My Life
3) The key to getting over mistakes.
In my high school days, I used to obsess over mistakes that I’d made. I’d kick myself again and again. Why did I say that? Why didn’t I do this instead? How could I have done that so badly?
Like many people, I believed that kind of self-flagellation was motivational. How, if I didn’t beat up on myself, could I get inspired to move forward?
Unfortunately, again like many people, I was 100% wrong. Beating up on yourself is counter-productive. It lowers your esteem, makes you feel bad, and discourages you from trying to improve yourself. That’s very problematic because the only way to get better at anything is to try, fail, get up, brush yourself off, and try again. Then you repeat until you succeed. The most successful people do correct their course, but they don’t spend much time kicking themselves in the behind because they were off course to begin with.
So how do you get to that point in your life? For me, it began with accepting a subtle truth: “You always do the best you can right now.”
At first glance, that statement appears to be OBVIOUSLY incorrect. Does a bright student who fails a test because she didn’t study do the best that she can? Does a boxer who loses a fight because he showed up out of shape do the best that he can? The correct answer is, “Yes, they did do the best that they could at that moment.”
What this does is set off a chain of productive questions.
Take the student, for example. If she’s bright, how can it be that she got a “D” doing her “best”? Could she do better than that? Absolutely. How? By studying. Why hasn’t she been studying? Because she puts it off until late at night, gets tired, and doesn’t bother. So how could she improve her “best”? By setting an earlier, regular study time.
What’s more productive? Slapping yourself around for failing, or recognizing that your “best” wasn’t even as close to as good as you could be and trying to figure out how to improve?
Even better than learning from your mistakes is learning from somebody else’s
everyone makes mistakes, that’s why it’s so easy to blame all yours on other people.
And it’s a lot less painful.
Bad GPS day pic
“You always do the best you can right now.” is postmodernist BS.
People slack off – we all do – sometimes out of laziness. To deny this is evading reality.
I would rather be a bit down than to lie to myself.
One more aspect to this – If you test students for self esteem – those that score lowers achieve the best – and those that score highest the least.
Oh, hear hear, Karl! The only mildly useful take-away in the article is the Frederick Douglass quote.
I think you missed the point. When a person slacks off, and performs poorly due to that decision, they, at that point, have to realize that they’ve done the best they can at that time, figure out the root cause (slackerliness) and change it. Then the next time, they’ll be able to do better. Cause and effect, and learning from your mistakes. That’s what I got out of that.
#5 is a tough one for me, too. It’s so much easier to stay at home, and so much more challenging to get up and leave the house. Thanks for verbalizing that.
I agree about self-esteem. This is the problem with American education, in my view: when the main goal is to develop self-esteem, nobody can be better than the worst student. Otherwise, it will hurt his/her feelings.
This was a terrific article. Thank you for it!
This was a good read, especially #5 since it convinced me to go to a party I’ve been invited to Saturday night even though I’d rather stay home alone.
It reminds me very much of the “Four Agreements”, which I try very hard to live by. Look them up if you get a minute.
New Age crap.
Great article, just what I needed right now. I will be forwarding and bookmarking it – thanks!
Hermano!
Great article and thanks for writing it. Levels of self-disclosure like this take courage but they are what make reading the candid thoughts of others such an unparalleled experience.
Number 5 reminded me of two things. Jackie Vernon’s (a hilarious comedian but someone who was at his heyday probably long before your time) answer to why he hated to go outside: “’Cause there’s *air* out there.”
The other’s a tad more philosophical, a quote from Norman Vincent Peale: “In anticipate all upcoming events with enthusiasm and expectation of good.” This one has worked wonders for me.
Gosh darn it….”I anticipate….”
Good advice that all of us need to remember. I also like to keep my sense of humor and wit, for the world is a very serious place and if we loose our ability to laugh, especially at yourself, all is lost. The ability to love and laugh is what keeps us going!
John, the threats you endure are serious, be careful my friend!
I have an inner drill sergeant. He’s always right.