Just about any action towards your goal is good action.
When we are fishing, and we have four guys in a boat who are casting their lures into the water all day, there are several times during the day where someone’s cast does not turn out the way they want it to. Usually, its a guy who is trying to throw it out as far as he can, and something happens, like his finger gets stuck on the line, or there is a minor snarl in the spool, and the cast goes 40 feet instead of 40 yards. Invariably you hear the guy, mumble or moan about how lousy the cast was. The immediate reply, that comes from the rest of the boat is”The fish doesn’t know it’s a bad cast!” And this is true. If the lure still ends up in the water (sometimes its in a tree…then the fish never know there WAS a cast!), there is still a chance that you can attain the goal of catching a fish.
Many things you strive for in life are the same way. Perhaps you are working on getting fit, and today you just don’t seem to have as much zip as you’d like. You struggle through your workout, and you think to yourself “what a lousy workout.” Well, you still worked out, you still burned some calories, you still did your body some good. Maybe, you are in sales and you are just not having a good day. You feel a little down. You had a little issue at home in the morning, your last ten calls the people didn’t answer, except for the few who did and rejected you right away, and you just feel worn out. The next call you make? That person does not know you aren’t having a good day. You are still in the game and working towards your goal. There have been many times when I was doing a public presentation, where I just wasn’t feeling it that day. I knew I was not operating at my A-game. But you know what? The people I am speaking to don’t know this.
Sometimes you will be in the zone and everything you do or say seems perfect, and sometimes you can’t even see the zone with a telescope.
Whatever you are working towards, you just need to be doing it on a consistent basis. Sometimes you will be in the zone and everything you do or say seems perfect, and sometimes you can’t even see the zone with a telescope. You just keep moving forward. One of the precious things I learned is that the more I do it, the better I get and the less times I feel like I am under-performing. So I stay consistent in what I do.
The next piece of insight here, is when I get to the point with whatever I am doing where I rarely make a mistake, that’s a sure sign that I need to up the challenge. I need to be having a few bad casts or I know I am getting too comfortable. So the moral of the story is to work at your goal until what you are doing becomes easy to do, then expand what you are doing so it becomes challenging again. This is how you grow to knew levels of achievement and skill in any endeavor.
