Some days all a person can see is what was done wrong, that mistakes were made, and all seems lost.  Well, what about the things that were done right?  Most every day most people have a series of small successes that often get overlooked due to some other error or “failure”.  If people could just see all that they do right or well in a day, it would all add up more quickly.

For example, if I looked at the failures of my day and focused on that, I would be down on myself for not going out for a walk in the evening to maintain the level of exercise I need right now.  I would berate myself for not getting all of the calls back made at work or for leaving work on time to manage my home life – yes, I have one of those.  If I looked at failures, I would tear myself up for a mistake I made on a client’s paperwork today.

However, I would rather focus on my successes:

•  I made about 20 phone calls in about an hour – pretty impressive I think!  I have probably 30+ more phone calls to go, but I got 20 done in the very short period of time I had to do so.
• I was going to eat a large cookie today – which would not have helped with my “diet” at all (trying to eat healthier and watch calories to lose some weight I’ve gained during grad school).  However, I became distracted and did not eat the cookie – it was an accidental success but I’ll take it.
• I managed to get a little bit of a workout in this morning – not a great work out, but I did something.  A successful step in the right direction.
• I completed two treatment plans and paperwork to go with it.  That is a success, a work success, but a success none the less.  Two more files off of my desk!  Yea!
• I received an e-mail from my dissertation committee telling me that it is felt that my proposal is ready to be turned in!  Yea!  No changes asked for.  My study was called both solid and interesting!  Can’t ask for more than that!  First major section of my dissertation is almost done and I’m almost onto phase II.  So excited and nervous all at the same time!
• Even though my daughter and I went on a weekend trip and spent more money than we realistically had to spend, I still managed to add to my savings accounts this week and get bills paid!  That is a huge success!  So excited about that as well.
• My daughter received five different awards for her film over the weekend!  That is exciting!

My daughter and I had a great discussion surrounding how we perceive and present our life to other and consider it for ourselves.  We both have plenty of failures daily.  She has had several rejections from a number of film festivals; however, she was also accepted by a handful.  If she focused on her rejections, she never would have kept going and received the acceptances, much less the awards.  If I focused on my rejections, I would have given up on exercise (as me and the scale are fighting as usual), given up on my dissertation (due to my own rejections of my own work, and may have given up on my job and career.  But, we both try to take every failure as a lesson to be learned and continue on.

So, today’s life lesson is to learn to accept failure, accept rejection, learn from it all and keep on keeping on.