Friday, April 9, 1999

Past results

It makes sense that you would want to learn from your past failures. Yet exactly how do you go about it?

Realize that it was not really a failure, it was a result. Some combination of your actions successfully caused the result, undesirable as it may have been. So in reality, you were successful. You were effective. You achieved something.

What you must do now is achieve something different. You’ve already proved that you’re effective at getting results. Now it is just a matter of getting the specific results you seek.

Your present actions do not depend on your past actions. There is absolutely no connection. Your actions can be anything you want them to be. You can change, you can adjust, based on experience.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking “I’ll do better next time.” After all, you don’t really want to do it better. You want to do it differently. Determine what caused the unwanted result and change it. You’ve already seen that you’re very effective at making things happen. Use that effectiveness to your advantage. Use it to get the results you desire.

— Ralph Marston

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Copyright ©1999 Ralph S. Marston, Jr. All Rights Reserved. The Daily Motivator is provided for your personal, non-commercial use only. Other than personal sharing, please do not re-distribute without permission.