How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
Let’s be honest, unless you are bowling or pitching, there is no such thing as PERFECT.
We may say that vacation was PERFECT or that mean was PERFECT or that the atmosphere of our about-to-start party is PERFECT.
Is it really?
And do we ever completely fail?
Of course not.
Seldom does the perfect or best case or the worst case scenario ever play out? Usually, the scene we end up playing out in our life story is somewhere in the middle. The middle or most likely to happen scenario. Yet so often, we beat ourselves up for making mistakes, miscalculating, or not playing the scene and/or our hand perfectly.
Even when we do play it perfectly, we find ways in which we could have done it better.
That’s human nature.
That’s the human mind and soul.
For some of us though, Monday Morning Quarterbacking can lead to higher levels of anxiety and lower pits of depression. It can lead to a lack of functioning. A lack of enjoying life and our family and friends. We tear ourselves a new one. And that is not good.
Finding the psychological fitness skills to be able to review our perceptions, calculations, and decisions without seeing our choices as the defining characteristics of our manhood is key to good mental wellness. Being able to accurately and fairly look at our decision-making process requires that we first see failure as a chance to learn and grow. Next, we have to be kind and empathetic to ourselves and know that when we calculated and made the decision we didn’t have as much knowledge and insight as we do now. When things don’t go according to plan we learn why things didn’t work out. That knowledge is golden. Yet if we are so focused on blaming we don’t take in the new knowledge and insight. We can not learn.
So set out to fail. Set out to make mistakes and learn how to tolerate setbacks while also giving yourself space and grace for learning.
Lesson 1: Boil a Cup of Water in UNDER Two-Minutes. Can You Do It?
Share your success and/or failure and the way in which you coped with failure or success:
Knowing and then embracing your personality and temperament is a KEY to managing your mental wellness. You personality and temperament define YOU, the main character in your life story.
To get you kickstarted on learning about your personality and temperament, watch the video below.
Consider which of the three characters with whom you MOST connect. Then consider WHY you connect with that character.
The answers will give you a glimpse into your personality and temperament. When you review the “WHY you connect” answers, can you see those characteristics in YOU? Do you accept those characteristics?
Then consider sharing your character connection and whys.
The Bob Zima Blog 
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