Whoudda, couldda, shoulda, what ifs, and wishes and having a short memory

 

I wish I had taken that internship at the radio station when I was in college.   If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t have sold all my stocks 10 years ago.  I really wish I could have finished filming that movie.  I shoulda’ sold my old camera equipment earlier when it carried more value.  I whoudda’ got that shot if the dummy with the Ipad hadn’t got in my way. I couldda’ saved so much more money when I was younger.

 

If you are haunted by questions and thoughts such as these than you are making it very hard on yourself to reach you goals.

 

Sports provides the best analogy.  When  pitcher misfires a pitch or has a bad outing – he lets it go and gets ready for the next start/next pitch.  A star basketball player misses a game wining shot – he lets it go and gets ready for the next game.  A quarterback can throw three interceptions in the first half and three touchdowns in the next.

 

Short Memory for Long Term Goals

 

Most times one of the aspects of reaching goals and having a successful life includes remembering experiences.  Being able to “remember” and “learn” from good and bad, being able to “reflect” and “evaluate” on strategic actions and sudden moves.  You have to learn from bad decisions in order to grow past them.  You have to be able to reproduce  your thought pattern in the heat of the moment in order ridicule it.  This is what business plans are made of.  This is how we set goals?  This is also how we constantly upgrade and gage ourselves. 

 

But there is a difference between learning from mistakes and being haunted/hindered by them.  This is nothing new.  Phrases like “don’t beat yourself up about it,” or “Let it go,” are commonly used in these types of situations. 

 

Letting our mistakes “haunt” us makes us scared.  You cannot be scared in striving for goals.  Being scared means you won’t’ take risk, being scared means you’ll overthink and over talk yourself out of good decision and great opportunities.  It can be hard to recognize being scared.  Most times you just think you’re doing your due diligence in trying to avoid another pitfall when in reality you avoided the pitfall and the opportunity on the other side of the pitfall at the same time.

 

I can tell you about the Direct Mail campaign that I spent 2500 bucks on that barely brought in 2 clients, or my Mall Ad that only netted 3 clients but coast me 900 bucks.  I can go on and on, and you can bet yo’ bottom dollar that I never stopped, never got overly frustrated, and I never got scared!

 

Lesson here- Bad mistakes and horrible luck are a part of life. When you let the bad luck bugs and bad decisions worry you; you get scared, and when you get scared – progress stops.

 

As P-Diddy used to say, “I thought I told you that we don’t stop!”  lol

 

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