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LM: #278: “My dog did my homework”
Sometimes your dog eats your homework.
If you’re going to be a person who does things, you can’t use that as an excuse. You do your homework again. People who do things know, once you start justifying your failures, you start a vicious cycle.
More insidious than justifying failure is justifying success. That is, convincing yourself a failure was actually a success:
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- “Nobody bought my art, but I handed out lots of business cards!”
- “This book didn’t sell, but I learned a lot writing it!”
- “The restaurant isn’t profitable, but we made enough to stay in business another month!”
There are times to find the silver lining. If you’re starting out, everything is a learning experience, failure or not.
But at some point you’re grown up enough to have known better and done better. You aren’t doing yourself favors by reasoning that a failure or even a middling success is actually what you wanted.
It takes discipline to do your homework again, but it takes courage to take a hard look at what’s just-okay, and decide you could do better.
Aphorism: “A succession of tiny paragraphs is as annoying as a paragraph that’s too long.” —William Zinsser
Cool: These golf pants (Amazon) are great for flying comfortably without looking too sloppy.
Best,
David
P.S. To evaluate success or failure, know ahead of time whether you’re playing a sure bet, or wildcard.
P.P.S. Thank you to Dan Cook for writing about me in the Bone Zone, which I promise isn’t what you think.
