Better late than never, right?
Okay, here goes
1. What are some take away points that you can take from last week’s habits? Did any one or more habits really resonate with you? Are you taking steps to change your actions so that they are in line with these habits? How?
I already have a daily gratitude practice, and I’m trying to up my game on that one and have a family gratitude practice as well. The habit that really resonated with me, though, is the one tondocus on what I can control and ignore what I can’t ir really liked listing the pairs of what I can and can’t control that was powerful for me and kept me from getting into whiny jealousy/comparison mode.
2. Do you take calculated risks? If so, how?
Right now I’m working on drafting and banking a series for rapid release (well somewhat rapid release, I’ll probably do one a month and then hopefully switch to one book a quarter once these are launched) on a new pen-name. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure these books are well structured and will go through several Rounds of editing with them to make them the strongest books that I can produce.
For me, this is a big risk on production time, but I feel like I want to build momentum with a solid release plan and I think I’m producing a solid series with a strong start and I think this is a way that I can learn and improve as a writer.
3. Do you dwell on past mistakes and rejections? How can you take steps not to do so as much in the future?
This is a tough one. I think I’m getting better at implementing the practice of evaluating what worked and what I want to try new next time around and that seems to be helping. Actively reviewing successes and failures like this has been helpful to me.
4. Do you sometimes make the same mistakes? How can you take steps not to do so in the future?
I tend to rush ahead without taking time to make sure that I’ve done my best or running things past other eyes first.
I also struggle with asking for help. I’m impatient.
Being aware of these problems, I think is the first step, I’m tying to get systems into place to remind me to take my time and to look for help and ask for help and learn more before I jump into things without making sure I’m setting myself up for success first.
Also, while this isn’t a mistake per se, or even beating myself up for mistakes, I do fear failure and struggle with perfectionism.
5. Are you too hard on yourself when you make mistakes? How can you take steps not to do so as much in the future?
I think this is a constant battle, haha. I am definitely working on not being such a perfectionist.
But, when I was younger I learned about teachable moments and also read about how it doesn’t serve to beat yourself up for your mistakes and instead it works better to proactively look for ways you can change things next time, like setting reminders on your computer or a sticky note in your workspace or other ways to change your system instead of beating yourself up about it. Then, at about the same time I read this, I was moved to a different cubicle where I sat near a coworker who would beat herself up over errors. I could hear her berate herself, “stupid, stupid, stupid!” Whenever she screwed up, but she never did anything to change the core problems. For example, she was constantly late and was the only person in the office required to email her supervisor when she arrived. She never changed the time she left her house, and so was constantly at the whims of traffic.
This was an older woman nearing retirement and she as never really advanced in her career, she was still in an entry level position.
While she was a nice person, she definitely drove this lesson home for me. So now, I try to look for ways to take ownership of my actions and look for ways I can change things to keep from repeating a mistake or just beating myself up and instead, stick to the formula above of what worked and what do I want to try next time so it goes better. This formula, also, for me helps me to focus on the positive and new tweaks instead of getting too mired in blaming certain actionable or people for negative results. Though, as I write this maybe I need to try to implement this more at home and in my personal relationships. I’ve been thinking about putting this up in a poster in my house actually... time for action, haha.
