Tag: failure

Being ok with things

Posted on by philipdodson

In the past I would beat myself up relentlessly about things.

Then finally I realised that it never inspired any improvement or change, not once did I feel good about myself afterwards.

So after years of painful struggle to change the habit, I’ve now reached a place of ‘being ok with things’.

I still fuck up, we all do. I still have days when I don’t achieve much, hey, we all do. I’ve slowly learnt to accept.

OK, I’ll still have the odd beating up session for old time sake. But that’s OK.

Perhaps my mellowness has come with many years of life experience, sure that’s some of it, however, I believe it’s a mindset I could have chosen at any age.

It’s not that I do not care, well actually, I don’t care, it’s only a chance to learn and that’s it, no one died, I survived, and life goes on.

If we just focus on getting even better slightly every day, then that’s the best we can aim for and it’s OK if we don’t.

If we left walking until we were adults…

Posted on by philipdodson

If we left learning to walk until we were adults, we’d be unable to.

Toddlers fall flat on their faces, time and time again, yet they get back upright and have another go.

Why? Because they have not spent years or decades talking themselves out of doing things and fearing falling flat on their faces.

Now, as adults, unless we’ve had too many beers, we’re unlikely to physically fall flat on our faces, but we do fall flat in so many other ways.

Instead of just getting back up again and rising strong, we shrink, we become fearful, we talk ourselves out of just doing it again, and again, and again, until we get there.

Richard Branson’s motto, another person who I am trying to learn more about, without evaluation, as I’d prejudged him, is ‘screw it, just do it’ and that is what the toddler says. Most adults say ‘screw it, I ain’t doing it’.

We have to fall over to learn, don’t stay too frightened to fall down.

If you haven’t guessed it yet from today’s and yesterday’s blog, I am talking to myself to get the f… on with things.