He’s making a list and checking it twice

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice

watch out! Don’t get on the naughty list. I want to be good. I would be ashamed to be caught out in some failure, not matching what I’m supposed to be.

The truth is we all fall short. Lord save us from our falling shorts, speaking of the naughty list.

But seriously, if I take a cold hard look around, failure is way more common than success. For those following along, I’ve been sitting in my mud puddle of failure lately. I’m not living up to what I wish I could be. It’s a cold and slimy feeling. It’s been a tough couple of years.

I guess if I’ve stuck in the mud, I can make mud pies. There is a lesson in failure

It’s taken me those years, but this week I finished David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me. He tells how he set out to break the record of pull-ups done in one day. He went on TV to break the record in front of everyone.

And Failed. In front of Everyone.

He knew what’s he’d done wrong though, and set himself up for success for the next time.

And Failed. Again.

This time it was serious. There were reasons to call it impossible.

Not for this guy. Since he’d failed so publicly, he gathered all the insults, jabs and criticism and reviewed the video. There is a lot that went right in his failure. He dove deep to see what went right and get a clear view on what he could change to beat that record.

These stories in my mud puddle could use a different angle. He was right. I can walk back these stories I’ve been telling myself of how I fell short and look for how I did well. With some thought and strategy I can do better than next time and get higher on that list.

That would be nice.