Here is a question: In the Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, do you think the hare was upset at having lost the race to the tortoise? I have a feeling the hare wasn’t upset at all. I think he was ok with it. I can see him laughing off the loss while hanging out at his favorite watering hole with the boys.
Why? Because he had excuses ready. He felt ill. He had a hard night. His shorts were too tight. He woke up on the wrong side of the burrow. His stop watch was broken. The temperature was too hot. The path was confusing. The turtle stepped on his foot at the start line.
It’s a fine line between allowing that you will fail on occasion and not completely beating yourself up over it and being content and lazy about your failures, using excuses and rationalizations to talk away your inability or unwillingness to meet your goal.
It’s important to be dissatisfied with a failure because the feeling of dissatisfaction is what will cause you to evaluate what really happened. And evaluating what happened is how you can avoid the same mistake and improve the next time out. There might be reasons for the failure and you need to know them, but there should be no excuses. Excuses never help you grow.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States