When things don’t go according to plan, many of us immediately start to ask ourselves the obvious question: “Why?”
But maybe that’s not the best approach. Because when you ask why something happened, in the absence of absolute honesty – which is often the case – excuses, good and bad will take over. Because we all know there is always a perfectly reasonable excuse for why something didn’t pan out.
When we make excuses we’re not only in essence being dishonest to ourselves and others. We are also failing to learn anything, so that we can get it right the next time around.
What to do?
Maybe we should focus on using the same approach any workshop will use, when you send your car for service. They will perform a diagnosis on your car in order to figure out what needs to get done. What they absolutely won’t do – unless your case is very special – is start speculating as to why something happened to your car.
They focus on fixing the problem.
You should do the same, when things don’t work out. Instead of pondering “why?” and coming up with excuses, focus on what needs fixing, and what you can learn from the experience. And once you have done that and have a moment for yourself, by all means start pondering the big questions in life.
But not a second before.
(Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash)