Have you ever let one bad experience ruin the rest of your day?
I know I have.
In fact, I had an experience like that today and it taught me 3 valuable lessons.
Let me share them with you now.
Creating Value is Hard
I spent the entire morning writing an article that I really wanted to be good. I cited research studies, looked up video clips from some of the world’s most prominent thought leaders, and edited for 2 hours. In the end, I was totally underwhelmed by the result.
Creating something valuable is hard.
It doesn’t matter if you’re building a business, creating art, or forming a relationship. There are bound to be days when your best effort turns out to be mediocre. It’s easy to feel like you’re wasting your time. And if you’re working on something really important to you, then it’s easy to let one wasted effort spoil the rest of your day.
That’s how I felt about 30 minutes ago.
The article I wrote was disjointed and tried to cover too much ground without getting to a tangible action point that you could actually use in your life. (Giving you something to act on to live a healthier life is my primary goal whenever writing an article.)
To make an example of myself, I decide to leave the article up. If you’re interested, you can read it here.
Eventually, I decided to stop staring at the screen and do my pushup workout for the day. (I’m working toward doing 100 pushups in row. Once I do it, I’ll share my whole program and lessons learned with you.)
What Happened?
Instead of letting my poor writing ruin my workout mentality, I decided to get excited about the workout, focus on the task at hand, and I ended up setting a new personal record for pushups in a single workout.
The personal record is great, but the lessons that are underneath it are much more important. In fact, these lessons tie directly into 3 of the core beliefs that our community has…
1. Health and happiness is the foundation of living a remarkable life.
Fitness has saved my day more than once. There’s something about physical movement that centers the mind.
Think about the highest performing people from any field in life. How many of them are severely unhealthy and out of shape? Very few.
If you’re struggling with something mentally, then get out and move physically.
2. Live in the arena instead of judging from the crowd.
If you play the game, then there will be days when you get your ass handed to you. You’ll produce average work, you’ll make stupid decisions, you’ll get beat by someone who is smarter, faster, or better.
That’s the cost of admission. That’s the price of being in the thick of things instead of watching from the sideline.
It’s better to work on things that are important to you and feel the frustration of failure than to play it safe and never push yourself.
3. Move toward the next thing, not away from the last thing.
Struggling with your latest project? Go have a good workout.
Failing to get your business off the ground? Grab lunch with a good friend.
Confused about what your boss wants from you? Make a tasty meal for dinner.
If something isn’t going well, then don’t run from it. Find something else to get excited about instead. Spend as much time as you can doing things that pull you in rather than pushing frustration away.
Move toward the next thing, not away from the last thing. It’s a subtle shift that makes all the difference in the world.