Tear It Up and Start Again

In relation to self-improvement, we often create idealized systems with unnatural rules and regulations. We also naively believe that we will find a way to stick to our rigid plans when life gets random and hard.
The problem isn’t that plans fail because crises appear; it’s what we do when they fail that matters.

When a plan or resolution fails, don't dismiss it to try a new, equally rigid resolution. Build on what worked.

When your plan fails, the best you can do is to look back and see which parts of it worked; which parts you found fun and easy and which you couldn’t handle even when you were full of enthusiasm.

“I never lose. I win or learn.”

All of us fail at meeting our goals at some point in life. That is not a problem. The problem appears when we fail and we are not learning from our mistakes.

That keeps us in the brutal cycle of making the same resolution every year and never achieving it.