If you stick at it long enough, you eventually get lucky. You get what you wanted.
The other side of the story is, if you enjoy success long enough, you make mistakes. You blow it.
Lasting success requires more than luck. Lasting success requires learning from mistakes and using what you learn to move on to greater victories.
Learning from Mistakes re Overeating
My overeating problem played a role in leading me to discovery of the Passion Saving approach to money management. I learned that I am not good at self-denial. For me, what works is to add something to my routine (exercise) rather than to try to subtract something from my routine (cookies).
Most people who struggle with weight issues have had times when they achieved at least limited successes. Think back to those times, identify what is different about them, and use what you learn to develop an effective weight-loss plan for today.
Two other things that have worked for me are being busy and not having snack foods readily available to me. When I was in my first year of law school, I was living in a dorm without a refrigerator. And I was too busy to eat out of boredom or to spend much time tracking down favorite foods. I was amazed to realize one day that I had lost a good bit of weight without making any effort to do so.
What kills me is stress. That’s another reason why I see exercise as the best solution to a weight problem. Not only is exercising adding a positive rather than subtracting a negative. It is a big stress reducer — running or biking gets my mind off my troubles. There’s also something about exercise that naturally causes stress levels to drop; it may be that there is some sort of chemical thing going on.
My guess is that others experience similar patterns. You need to become aware of the patterns and focus on what works for you. Losing weight is not just about looking good. It helps with confidence and it helps with increasing energy levels. It is very much a money topic. People who are happy with their weight are more successful.
Learning from Mistakes re Dating
We all follow patterns of behavior. Each girl that I dated seriously was different in important ways. But now that I have a good bit of distance from those days, I can see the patterns. I dated one girl because she was smart and could introduce me to books and movies that I wouldn’t discover on my own. I dated another because she was, in the words of a family friend, a “pistol” in the personality department (and, no, it wasn’t Claire Danes, despite what Ataloss may tell you!). I married my wife because she possesses strong character.
The similarities are not obvious. I think that the common trait is that each of these women possessed an unusual strength of some sort or another. Joni Mitchell had a line – “You don’t like weak women, you get bored so quick; and you don’t like strong women because they’re hip to your tricks.” I relate to the first part, but not the second. My wife is hip to all of my tricks. Good for her, you know? And good for me too. We all need someone in our life telling us the straight story if we hope to be learning from our mistakes. Stuff that I pass right by is obvious to her.
One mistake that I made that I imagine lots of others make (but probably not to the same extent) is that I assumed the existence of feelings in dating partners that were not present. We are so caught up in what we are looking for that we assume that others are looking for similar things. That is often not at all the case.
To some extent I agree with people who say that you should consider whether a potential dating partner is responsible with money, and to some extent I do not. It is of course a plus. But I rank other things as higher priorities. On reason why it is a good idea to look at how a dating partner handles money is that someone who has his or her head on straight about money probably has his or her head on straight about lots of other things too. It takes a lot of work to get your head on straight about money today. Those who have done it have some brain cells working.
The other side of the story is that some who are doing well financially just happened to fall into lucky circumstances for a time. You need to consider whether the good financial circumstances are likely to be permanent. Also, arrogance about financial success is not uncommon among those who have achieved it. I find this a turn-off. It’s one thing to do well yourself. It’s something else to put yourself above those who are struggling.
Learning from Mistakes re Career Decisions
I once had a guy tell me that it is a bad idea to take a job that pays less money because it promises more fulfillment. There is a sense in which I have not followed that fellow’s advice at all. A big part of my pitch for financial freedom is that it permits you to do more exciting things with your working hours. (because you can choose work without having to worry much about what it pays).
What the guy said stuck in my head, however. He was right to point out that people measure their self-worth by how much they earn. Self-fulfillment is hard to measure. Dollars are concrete. When you’re feeling insecure, knowing that you are earning a big salary can be a pick-me-up.
My view is that you must seek to do important work. You will lose the sense of adventure that energized you as a child and as a young adult if you do it just for the money for too long. There’s more than one way to be a whore and I don’t believe that whores ever really feel good about what they do. But you must watch the practical side too. You no more want to feel that you are a doormat than you want to feel that you are a whore.
The best of all worlds is to for a short time do work that pays enough to leave you free to take wild risks after only a short time of intense saving. Another reasonably good bet in the right circumstances is to do work that is highly fulfilling but that stands some realistic chance of bringing in the big bucks somewhere down the line.
Learning from Mistakes re Friends and Family
Is it not amazing how fights with loved ones are so often about the same things? You cannot learn to have a different personality. Nor can your friend or your spouse or your sister.
You can learn how good it feels to admit where you are wrong and to praise the other person for what she or he adds to your life. The best thing about disagreements is that they bring on pain, which brings on introspection, which brings on growth.
Learning from Mistakes re Spending
It sure makes you feel dumb to see something in a closet that you never once wore. This shows the power of emotion to influence spending decisions. More and more all the time, we don’t buy stuff to serve rational purposes but to inspire feelings within us as to who we are and what our lives are about. The lesson to be learned is to pay closer attention to the emotional side of money allocation decisions.
Learning from Mistakes re Schooling
I wish that I had learned Latin and I wish that I had taken even more Shakespeare courses than I did.
I think that there are a good number of people today going to school to hide out. They are not clear on what career they should pursue or on how to get started on the one they would like to pursue and school seems like a safe place to think things over. It’s an awfully expensive Free Space.
I have sympathy for what those starting out are up against today. Job are more specialized and it is easier both to hit the jackpot by lucking into a high-potential job and to fall into a rut by making a less than ideal choice. It’s harder to make a call when there is so much riding on a decision and when it is hard to obtain good information about the pros and cons (many jobs being pursued today didn’t exist 20 years ago).
Learning from Mistakes re Free Time
It is more important today to make effective use of free time than it ever has been before. There are more choices available to us today. We can take advantage of opportunities only if we make time to explore possibilities that are not presented to us on a plate. Listen to stories of how people who attained early financial freedom did so and you will surely hear stories of people making effective use of free time.
I don’t mean to suggest that all free time should be directed to practical pursuits. I see it as a bad thing to go too many years without reading a novel. I see it as a bad thing to go too long without picking up a new non-practical skill (like skiing or playing the piano). I like to think that I am learning a bit more about God and why He put me here as time passes. My thought is that you need to mix up the practical with the dreamy. The dreamy becomes real by being given roots and the practical becomes powerful by tapping into the energy of a dream.
Learning from Mistakes re Beliefs
I read in a magazine article that one of the good points of hitting 40 is that you have developed enough confidence in what you are that you no longer feel as much of a need to obtain the approval of others. Part of the thrill of gaining in confidence is being able to say “I was dumb.”
I was wrong to buy that Leo Sayer album. I was wrong to leave the Church for so many years. I was wrong to stay single for so many years. I was wrong to be afraid to have kids. I was wrong to waste so much time following politics. I was wrong to spend so much time reading newspapers. I was wrong not to exercise regularly for a time. I was wrong to go so many years without even giving thought to writing down a Life Plan. I was wrong to take dumb risks, like I did that time I drove a car after attending a party to celebrate my graduation from law school. I was wrong not to work up the courage earlier in life to take some risky career moves that stood a reasonable chance of generating a big payoff. I was wrong not to visit my brother more often when we lived so close together that it was easy to do so. I was wrong not to recognize earlier signs of Alzheimer’s in my father in the years before he died. I was wrong to read so many magazine articles, thereby limiting the time that I had to devote to reading books. I was wrong to believe the Phillies of the late 1960s when they claimed each Spring that they had some rookies coming up who were going to turn the team around.
My hope is that I will be able a year from now to see clearly what’s wrong in some of the dumb stuff I do and say today.