Sunday, September 7, 2014

Failure is always an option.



I don't work as many hours as I use to but my work still drains almost everything I have. It's always hard to decide how much it needs, how much it takes, and how much I'm giving it. The former seems so large that the latter feels almost non-existent. The crux was that the less I had to give it, the more of a failure I felt like. I was certain if next time I just push harder I wouldn't fail.
That went on for a long time and caused no end of issues until I finally decided that there are just things that had to fail. Not that I would intentionally fail  or that it was inevitable just that if I piled so much on my plate something was going to fail. I started choosing where and what I was willing to fail. 

It was a hard transition but once I was sure I was making conscious, correct, choices on where/what I was willing to fail, I felt more in control. 


It wasn't easy, we're programmed to believe that any failure is in fact a failure of character.


It also took some time to explain to my boss that so long as my plate was so full, that I would fail at some of my goals. I would try, I would leverage all I had but my resource, my internal resources, were just as finite as my time and that the passage of time did not replenish or bolster these resources.


So now we have discussions about how to manage my internal resources, and my to-do list prioritization discussion always factor in the relative acceptability of an item never being completed.


That being said, my work stresses me out to no end, and my to-do list of items that cannot fail gets longer every day, but being willing to make the conscious choice to fail at a goal, not because I lack the ability or drive, but because my internal resources are not infinite freed me from the mantra "If I don't succeed at all my endeavors, I am a total failure." 




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