Stop Hitting The Reset Button (Do This Instead)

We usually have this idea of what success and progress looks like. 

 

We tend to think that it is a straight line, and if something gets in the way of that, we need to start over. 

 

However, we are only applying this to goals that feel scary, big, or unattainable. 

 

Because when we consider how many things we do every day, we do a lot of things where we are encountering obstacles and that is not really getting in our way.

 

We’re not trying to get a fresh start from that. 

 

For example:

Think about getting yourself places… Maybe you’re driving your kids to school, and you hit a stoplight. You don’t tell yourself, “Well, now I have to come back home and start over.”

 

So when this is happening, you’re just seeing this as a part of the road. Even though it’s not as perfect as you thought because maybe you were hoping for all green lights. So even though there was something in the way that stopped you momentarily, you’re moving on. You’re continuing your drive‌. 

 

The same thing should apply to our goals.

 

Things will happen, but they are not a sign that we need to turn around and go back home.

 

They’re not a sign that we need to start over to actually achieve success. 

Obstacles are a normal part of the road, and when we are encountering an obstacle and choosing to start over… We are basically doing two things. 

First of all, it feels discouraging because we are telling ourselves that what we did didn’t count. 

 

It didn’t really help us towards our goals because we need to start over. 

So we are negating the progress that we have made and we’re also getting ourselves back to square one. 

Maybe what we want to think about changing here is not avoiding failure on our way to success. But it’s more about how we can respond to failure differently.  

What if we could see failure a bit more neutrally instead of thinking that the only thing that gives us value is success? 

 

We could also think about how failure gives us important information.

 

Failure can actually be your best teacher.

 

Failure can be your GPS that tells you exactly what you need to tweak, but we rarely pay attention to it. 

 

We are so busy thinking about how we need to start over and get it right, that we’re not using that really valuable information that we just got from that previous experience. 

Here’s what we want to do instead: 

 

• • Pause

• • Take a moment to accept

• • Reflect 

• • Then keep going

Pausing and accepting means that we can take a moment to think about how we feel. To really validate that we don’t need to gaslight ourselves or tell ourselves that everything is okay. 

 

We can validate how this feels, that it doesn’t feel good, that we are disappointed, and we can do that without buying into the narrative that this means that we should quit. 

 

Those two things don’t need to go together. 

You can choose how you are going to respond and what your response is going to be, not based on emotion, but based on your plans and your desires.

 

You can also choose to reflect: 

 

 

• • What is this teaching me? 

• • What can I actually get out of this? 

• • How am I going to apply this to come out of it wiser and use it towards success? 

And lastly, we dust ourselves off and we keep going. 

 

Failure is going to show up a number of times towards any goals that you’re working on. And this doesn’t mean that it is a sign to quit. 

It is simply one more thing along the way, like a stoplight.

You’ll actually be making a lot more progress if you take this approach and you will be coming out a lot wiser. 

 

And being able to apply all of this into actually being more strategic when it comes to not making those same mistakes that led to that failure in the first place. 

 

The Main Takeaway Here: 

 

We can’t avoid failure, and maybe we shouldn’t even try to avoid failure because it is actually giving us a lot of information about what to tweak as we pursue our goals. 

 

Instead, we want to make sure that we’re creating neutrality around it. So that we are not allowing it to take the wheel about what we’re going to be doing next. 

 

Thank you for reading, see you in the next one!