See the Improvement & Not Just a Loss

    How many of you have tried to take up a new challenge or start a new habit. You set out with  an ambitious goal and not quite made it.

    Do you call this a failure?

    Maybe. Maybe not.

    I challenge you to try looking at it a little deeper.

    Don't look at just whether or not you made the final goal. I want you to look at what progress you made in your attempt. What did you learn? Did you start to build a new habit? Did you put in more work than you would have otherwise? Can you build off that work?

    Let's take a challenge like NaNoWriMo. If you are not familiar with NaNoWriMo you can go to their website to find out more, however, the long and short of it is that it is a challenge to write 50000 words of a novel in 30 days.  I have failed this challenge several times. But with some of those failures I have used it as a way of building new habits and busting through fears.

Image from NaNoWriMo.org

    Even if I couldn't manage to get 50,000 words I wrote almost everyday; undisturbed. I learned my limitations. I learned my strengths. I learned what methods work for me. And if I had only looked at the fact that I didn't complete the challenge in the allotted time, I would have missed all of the benefit of putting in effort.

    In May I set out to make a post on this blog every single day. And I failed. However I did post about as much as I posted a month in the beginning on this blog. 14 separate posts.  It felt amazing to be writing again. And If I had only focused on whether or not I had posted every day I would have missed that.

    So I challenge you to look at the things you're working on. look at your progress. See your progress. See where you are improving. don't get discouraged by whether or not you complete the goal or challenge.

    Too many times I have come across people who are of the opinion that if you don't succeed in your goal or challenge then you never even tried. This is just a toxic idea.

    Take the little wins that you get.  Those little bits of progress, those little bits of improvement, those are little wins. Take those little wins and build your confidence. Take those little wins and keep building toward what you want.