If At First You Don't Succeed...

'Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again.
If at first you don't succeed,
Try, try again. - Thomas H. Palmer (1782 - 1861) Teacher's Manual (1840)

Like everyone else, I'm more familiar with the trying than the succeeding.  But without the trying, there wouldn't be any succeeding, so if I want to experience SUCCESS, I have to pay my dues.

I've been feeling lower than complacent lately and unable to concentrate on the things I need to be doing.  Okay, not just concentrate, but even give a damn.  So a couple of days ago, I convinced myself that this inability to make any progress that I've been having is bad, and I proceeded to give myself a quick, hard kick in the you know what to get me going.  I needed motivation.  It helped.  At least a little.  I haven't found all the motivation I need, but I'm slowly getting there. 

It appeared that I was on the right track.  However, it would be easier if I was able to at least give some time to the small goals I set.  That doesn't seem to be happening.  Story of my life.

That calendar I created with Word to keep me on the straight and narrow and also so allow me to track my progress looks exactly the same as it did two days ago.  Nothing has been done that was scheduled, nothing has been marked off as Finis.

There are times when we feel like throwing in the towel and giving up.  Must of those times are because we've fallen off the ladder of success and maybe have lost sight of where we were headed in the first place.  Or at least it seems we have.  A good hard shake of our 'selves' will probably put us back on the road, if not a foot up on the rungs of that ladder, and we can give moving forward or up a try again. 

If at first you don't succeed...

So in spite of the fact that I'm already two days behind on my first goal--I make them small and then chop them up into even smaller mini-goals--that doesn't mean I should throw in the towel and forget about it all.  No, that's not the way to succeed.  Success can only happen at this point by taking a deep breath and the steps necessary to to move forward, if only an inch.  One step at a time.  And if that means spending time over the weekend that I hadn't scheduled for anything except vegging out--something I don't do a whole lot of--then so be it.

Success can be measured by attaining a life goal.  It can also be measured by those small, almost infintesimal things that we tend to ignore.  While it's true that we shouldn't sweat the small stuff (like my two unproductive-toward-my-goal days) we should celebrate the small movement we make in a foward direction toward our goals.  Or any other accomplishment, even when not goal-related.

Success, no matter how small it is...celebrate It!