What To Do After A Major Failure Or Setback, Staying Consistent | Life-Mastery Q&A

Hey guys. Welcome back to JourneyPristles Q&A. Today's first question is how do I know if I'm making the right decisions for my life? It's actually a question we get reasonably often because we're all, let's face it, we're all trying to get to like a great place in life. We all have an aspiration or something we're going after. I think step number one is always to gain perspective. You know, we use that as one of our pillar points as it relates to our grow framework. And gaining perspective actually spends a lot of time looking at things from various angles to make sure you're getting as much information as possible. Not limited, but including two. Like what mentors do you need? Where are you getting your current information from? What types of opportunities you may have? What are types of threats? What are type of challenges to relationships? Basically what you're looking at at the end of the day is you're trying to figure out the best way to make sure you're getting a long range perspective for long range outcomes. And I think if you'll do that really, really well and just spend time getting, gaining perspective, that'll help you a lot of ways. The next thing I would say is make sure you're actually looking at the potential benefits. In other words, the benefits of getting to this destination is going to give you as well as the potential sacrifices. So often we get so focused on trying to get further faster that we actually miss the important steps of developing your character along the way to make sure that you're actually ready to actually take on the new things that are coming down the pipeline. So. So make sure you have a reasonable expectation of your benefits that you expect to receive as well as a reasonable expectation of your sacrifices. And I think if you do those couple things, you'll find it really easy to get the decisions and the directions you need.

All right, our next question is what should I do after a major failure or setback? I personally have been through this several times with a lot of things in my life, and I think the easiest way to do it is to actually tell you a story. Now, whether or not you share my faith or not, an important one is a guy by the name of King David in the Bible. Now, King David spent a lot of time killing giants and a few other things, but what we miss oftentimes is that he also had to basically escape the city. He had to go on the run for a little while, and he had to spend time in the cave, even though he had been a Great warrior and he had been a great musician and a great partner to the king at the time. Unfortunately, due to Saul's basically chasing, he had to run off. And why is that important? I think it teaches us a principle. And that principle is first thing that I think you need to do after a setback is I think you need to go into a period of assessment. Now I don't necessarily mean isolation where like for example in David's category he went to the cave and basically spent time just kind of nourishing the hurt that came with that, right? It's okay to recognize the hurt, the frustration, the disappointment, the discouragement that comes with not necessarily meeting the expectation that you had set out for. That's okay. In other words, you should be okay with that actually happening. You shouldn't take it as a personal self esteem attack on not getting the outcome that you wanted early on. Right? You should just take the time to kind of sit down, learn the lesson, reflect, heal up a little bit if need be, and then actually take the time to do what most warriors do while they're in the cave, which is sharpen your sword. All right? And when I say sharpen your sword, what that means is sharpen your skill set. Take the time to actually sharpen your skill set after you figure out what you need to learn. Another thing is I think you need to apply the lessons. You have to apply the lessons that come with that skill. Sharpening, right? Every adversity is going to teach you something unique and something powerful about your future and about really the person you're supposed to become as it relates to actually, actually achieving that goal in the future. So make sure you take the time to reflect, sharpen your skills, apply your new skills and then just measure results. And if you mess up, you have a failure of some kind, quote, unquote failure, give yourself some grace and just try again. My experience is those that become unstoppable are people who just simply refuse to give up. Right? They have a setback, they try again. Setback, try again. If you do the same thing, that'll help you keep winning.

Alright, our next question is a pretty profound one and that is, does overthinking lead to failure? Want the truth? The honest truth? The honest truth is not really. Some people say, well, let me get this straight, I can actually overthink myself. It's not the overthinking that holds you back, it's the lack of taking action that holds you back. It's okay to strategize, it's okay to plan. It's okay to get valuable resources from valuable places, from valuable people. It's okay to study up and study hard, provided at the end of the day you take action. So how do you do that? How do you actually take the time to take that action that you need to kind of move forward? Well, one of the ways in which it works for me specifically is I'll actually pull out a calendar and I'll actually circle a date on the calendar that I must make a decision. By now, maybe that's it could be everything from traveling to relationships, it could be anything. But if I need to make a decision, I don't want to get stuck in analysis paralysis. So I may give myself a week, a month, even two or three months to make a wise decision in any given area. Basically, the more time or more important the decision, the more time I take. But at the end of the day I've got to take action. So set a date on the calendar, circle it, choose a date and time where this is my day that I'm making the decision and I'm going to start my courses of action, right? Make the decision that day, spend all the other time getting all the information you want, talking to all the different influencers and mentors and other people in your life that can help you make a wise decision, get all the information, you can, filter that information, plan it, but on that day you make the decision and you start taking action immediately and then reinforce it with a routine. And if you'll do that, you won't have to worry about this question ever again.

Alright, the next question is how do I stay consistent? Alright, there's no secret in that if you're not consistent, you're not going to make progress. You know, you've heard us talk a lot about being going from stuck to unstoppable. Stuck means you're not making progress. Unstoppable means you're making consistent progress. That's all. Unstoppable is because you haven't stopped, right? Well, the secret to that is consistency. Well, the best way to begin to make consistent steps and take consistent results is to reinforce it with an actual routine. For example, I wake up on average around between 5 and 6am every day. I spend the first 15 or 20 minutes in prayer and meditation being thankful for everything that's in my life and being thankful for the day asking, and obviously from my faith, asking God to lead me and direct me. Okay? After that I put on the gym clothes and then basically I head to the local gym and or my house where I have a little Bowflex kind of scenario set up, but ultimately I'm going to be working out my body while I'm simultaneously carving out information that comes into my mind through YouTube, podcasts, audio books, stuff like that. Even recently, one of my most favorite books I've recently read is actually Built to Serve by Evan Carmichael. That's been an awesome book, and he would agree that consistency is the key, and routines get you there. So make sure you're taking the time to do that. Make sure you define your timeline right. We talked about it on a different question, where you got to have a timeline, you got to have a specific point in time. You're going to be doing that, where you got to make sure that I'm taking action on this day. The other thing I want you to just remember really fast is that in order to stay consistent, you got to give yourself some grace. Far too many times I see people dissuaded by the simple fact that unfortunately, they make a mistake, they don't stay on track. So the next day they're like, well, I missed it yesterday, so maybe I shouldn't try again. No, that's not the way it works. If you miss it on day one, try again on day two, and then day three and day four. That's being consistent. Focused. Intensity will get you there consistently building a routine. So use a routine to help build that intensity, put that infrastructure into place, and take actions and start winning. Hey, guys, I hope you enjoyed this week's Life Mastery Q and A video. We're doing a new Q and A video every single Monday, and if you have questions you'd like answered, simply leave a comment with your question below this video or email us at questionsurneyprinciples.com and if we use your question, we'll send you a free gift just to say thank you.