What’s Going Right?
I competed in a 25k trail race last weekend for the first time. When people asked me how it was, my answers were:
It was a beautiful day to be outdoors
It was a beautiful course
I finished
It was super hilly
My foot hurt for lap 3, so I hiked the longest 5.2 miles to the finish line.
So often, we might lead with what didn't go well vs. what went right. As an achievement-focused individual, I always focus on what I could do better or differently. I want to be the best version of myself or accomplish what I believe is possible. But I'm working on focusing on what's going right more than what I need to change.
The challenge with this achievement-oriented mentality is that sometimes you start overthinking what you need to change vs. focusing on what's going well and what to keep doing. Sometimes we undervalue those things.
It makes me think about the first time I heard Marcus Buckingham talking about playing to our strengths. I was in a big hotel ballroom in Florida for a work event, and he started explaining this concept by talking about which hand we write with and about penmanship. One of his examples was about how you improve your handwriting - do you focus on making your dominant hand better or focus on the one that is weaker? All of us would probably say that we'd focus on our dominant hand though it might be interesting to be ambidextrous.
It's evident in this situation, but often, in life, we do focus on our weaknesses and what we're not doing as well more than our strengths. This is not to say never focus on your weak areas and try to get better, but more that this shouldn't be your primary focus. You are better served by improving your strengths so those can make up for some of your weaknesses.
Going back to the idea of focusing on what's going right…when you look at this week or your life in general, what's going right? What should you keep doing or do more of to make things even better? Can you focus less on what you think you need to improve and more on doing what you're already good at?