How To Bounce Back
You know that feeling when you realize you're not perfect?
And then you realize you're more than not perfect, you're completely useless?
And then you start to question what you're doing, who you're with, and why you're doing it?
Yeah.
It happens.
The trick isn't not having it happen.
The trick is bouncing back.
This is one of those "simple but not easy" kind of things.
How to get through it:
Have an anchor or two.
It helps if you have a list of things you believe in or core values. This will help you focus on what you know to be true about yourself in a time where uncertainty fogs your vision.
Have a mentor.
If you have 3 people in your life who you can talk to for a half-hour a month about what you're afraid of and how to develop more strength, you've won the lottery.
Have some forgiveness.
You're where you are. Seriously. Accept it. That doesn't mean you're not going where you want to go. It just means a little forgiveness will help you focus on bouncing back instead of wasting energy beating yourself up.
These are just three things that have worked for me.
I like to say "a lot of advice is people saying: 'here are the numbers I used to win the lottery,'" so these might not work the same way for you.
Let me know what you think.
2 Minute Action
- Think of one person who you admire. Call them and ask if they will be your advisor and talk with you once a month.
- Write down a few core values. They won't all be perfect or right, but you can re-evaluate every couple of months and evolve over time.
- Look at where you are and consider what it would take to accept your failures. I bet you it only takes 2 minutes to do this for the first time.
Why I Publish Bad Blog Posts
Yes, I’ve written bad blog posts and published them.
For any of you who follow me or read my blog, this shouldn’t be a surprise.They can’t all be “War and Peace.”
The thing that’s difficult isn’t writing good content and publishing it—it’s publishing work that’s not that amazing.
It hurts me sometimes if what I write doesn’t feel massively inspiring, insightful, unique, or actionable.
The goal is to get to a place of consistent, high-quality output.
That can’t happen without publishing the bad stuff along the way.This is not a cheap, disguised excuse to pump out crummy content—that would be deliberately cutting corners to reduce the effort required.That would be consistently low quality.Seneca said something like: “in order to know and understand good wine, one must drink a lot of bad, even terrible wine.”I think you get the point.If you want to be great, you have to forgive yourself for not being great right at this very second and understand that you’re going to have to be embarrassed for a little while as you figure it all out.
2 Minute Action
Publish something today.Perform the speech that’s not quite ready yet.Implement a new lesson plan that’s almost all the way there.Unless you’re a brain surgeon, the risk of failing isn’t that high.Go for the gusto, today.
The Part of Perfectionism Everyone Struggles With
If I’m being honest with you, writing every day is hard.
Especially considering the parameters I gave myself.
Each post must:
- Be in my own voice
- Have my unique viewpoint
- Be quickly digestible
- Be actionable
When I committed to writing every day, I realized that this was big.
Coming up with a fresh concept, in my own words, that was easy to consume, and that also demanded a discrete action that could be achieved in 2 minutes or less is a pretty difficult challenge.
So, what happened?
Sometimes posts didn’t go out at the right time. I travel a lot so timezones have messed with my automated triggers that send out emails and tweets.
Sometimes I am finishing my workday at a weird hour and I’m exhausted—but I still have to write. It’s painful.
Sometimes I miss typos, fail to get the point across or make the post too short to really communicate the point.
Basically, I fail a lot.
And however much I fail, it feels like I’m failing 10 times that.
The point isn’t to make it perfect. Well, at least not today. Or tomorrow.
The point is to constantly approach the upper limit.
The point is to ride the asymptote of improvement as far over to perfect as I can.
The only way to do that is by writing, reviewing, adapting, testing, getting feedback, and writing again.
The other part is to accept that people are going to criticize what you’re doing, especially you. In fact, you are often your own worst critic.
This is the case for writing and it’s the case for everything else.
There’s no substitute for consistently doing the work.
And you’re not allowed to beat yourself up.
2 Minute Action
What’s something that you’ve been meaning to improve in your life?
- Exercise?
- Marketing your brand?
- Motivating your volunteers?
- Energizing your students in the morning?
Here are some things you can do right now in 2 minutes or less:
- Do burpees for 2 minutes straight. If you can’t, do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
- Send out an email to past clients and ask them to write a testimonial for your brand.
- Pick a measurable outcome that volunteers can see. If they can see how well they’re doing, they are more likely to improve.
- Google “fun facilitation exercises” like “rock, paper, scissors, posse.” You have the whole internet at your fingertips.