Building into the Year & Getting Comfortable with Failure

THINKING YELLOW

Yellow is creative from a mental aspect, the colour of new ideas, helps us to find new ways of doing things. It is the practical thinker, not the dreamer. It is the best colour to create enthusiasm for life and can awaken greater confidence and optimism.

“The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn’t the way things go.” Richard Hamming

What seeds are you planting today for next month? Next year?

THE STONECUTTERS BLOCK

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 100 & First blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob Riis

“Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.” Carol Dweck,?Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

We’ve all been there: you make a new year’s resolution and...it doesn’t stick. Why?

It’s often because we don’t allow ourselves to be bad at it at first. We fail a few times and then decide to give up. But adopting any new habit is going to feel clunky at first.

The key to taking on something new is to get more comfortable with failure. Here’s how. Start by immunizing yourself against big letdowns by trying out experiments that allow you to fail in tiny ways. For example, if your goal is to write every day, start by committing to one short paragraph each morning. If you don’t like what you write, no big deal! It’s just a paragraph. Write another one tomorrow.

Next, make your goal known to others before your self-doubt creeps in and you chicken out. This layer of accountability will help you actually follow through on your goal—no matter how bad you are at it the first time. And finally, keep a log of your efforts. Over time you’ll notice how far you’ve come.

Rather than focusing on the small, inevitable failures, you can appreciate your overall progress.

QUESTION TIME

Questioning techniques are important because they can stimulate learning, develop the potential to think, drive clear ideas, stir the imagination, and incentive to act.

1. What seeds are you planting today for next month? Next year?