“I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.”
― Philippians 4:13

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes we get hurt, or we get sick. Sometimes a loved one suffers or dies.

You can’t avoid pain. You won’t avoid tragedy. So what will you do about it?

You could fear the bad things in life. You could get angry. You could collapse under the weight of pain and tragedy.

Or instead, you can become a person who can take the pain. You can become a person who is strong enough to handle the tragedy. Better still, become the person who can put others on their back and carry them through when they’ve got nothing left. Become a source of strength for everybody else.

None of this means you won’t feel the pain. It doesn’t mean you won’t cry when you lose someone. But, you can choose to keep moving forward, and you can be the leader that others need.

“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”
— Joe Abercrombie

Everybody makes mistakes, but when you screw something up for your team, a client, or a friend or family member, you need to dig yourself out of that hole. Here is my five-step process for dealing with personal mistakes.

1. Admit the mistake to yourself. If you can’t admit your mistakes to yourself, then you won’t be able to resolve the situation successfully. Take ownership and don’t make excuses even when it’s easy to blame other people.

2. If something is “on fire,” stay calm. Determine what actions are immediately necessary and execute those until the situation is stable.

3. Get ready to apologize. “I’m sorry” is a very powerful phrase when deployed sincerely and humbly. You don’t have to go around proclaiming your mistakes to the whole neighborhood, but if anyone deserves an apology, give it freely.

4. Never let this mistake happen again. You need to debrief and review what went right and what went wrong. Talk with your mentors and teammates, and get to the bottom of what happened and what you can do better going forward. Then seriously commit to improvement.

5. Believe in yourself. You are not defined by your mistakes, but by how you respond to your mistakes. You need to get back in the game, and you can’t play scared.

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
— Seneca

Fear is a part of human nature. You can’t avoid it entirely. You’re never going to completely eliminate your fear, so you have to use it to your advantage instead.

Start by letting go of the things you can’t control. You can’t control everything no matter how much you try, but if you stay afraid, if you stay anxious, you’ll stay frozen in place. Let go and start moving forward.

Next, start fearing the things you can control. Fear failure. Fear boredom. Fear mediocrity. Fear being 90 years old and looking back with regret because you didn’t take action.

That healthy fear will give you the motivation you need to continuously improve. That fear will get you out of bed when you want to sleep 15 more minutes. That fear will help you push through when the going gets tough.

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”
— J.C. Penney

There are always a lot of little chores or short-term projects that pull our focus. The necessary tasks stand in the way of the important ones. Distractions are everywhere. Our gadgets, our phones, our TVs, and other frivolous stuff call us away from what matters.

But don’t lose track of the long-term goal. Do something every day that moves you towards that goal. Find an hour a day to work on your success. Everybody can find an hour. You don’t have to do something big, but you need to stay on target and stay obsessed with victory.

Is focus hard? No. Our brains are great at focusing, but we focus on the wrong things. Well, if you’re focused on dumb stuff, it’s going to take a lot longer to reach your goal. Do you want to hit your target faster? Then get ridiculously focused on what matters and stop settling for the status quo!

Decide every day to make it happen. Don’t give in to weakness. Stop complaining and stop procrastinating. Learn to enjoy the process and learn to appreciate the journey.

“Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!”
— Ms. Valerie Frizzle, “The Magic School Bus”

Of course, you should try to avoid mistakes, but when you inevitably fail, be ready to learn. Get yourself in that mindset before you even begin. Set yourself up to continuously evaluate, and then adjust as you go. Checking your ego is critical. Self-awareness is absolutely necessary. But, if you fall flat on your face, that’s probably nature helping you with both.

You can learn from other people’s failures, too. They already did the hard part. You simply need to understand what happened. Otherwise, as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Find examples of people in similar situations to yours and figure out what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they already learned from the experience.

So, always try to win, but give yourself permission to lose. Don’t worry about what other people think of your loss. Focus on maximizing the experience. And after you fail, always get back up and start moving forward better, stronger, and wiser.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
— Chinese Proverb

It’s easy to judge our past actions or lack thereof with the benefit of hindsight. In reality, we need to stop focusing on what we should have done in the past and stay focused on what we need to do now.

Sure, I wish I had invested in Netflix back in 2012, but I didn’t because I didn’t have a lot of money. I wish I had mined Bitcoin back in 2011, but I ran into some issues and gave up. I wish I had started blogging back in 2000, but I didn’t because I figured nobody cared about my thoughts. I wish I had started regular workouts when I was 22, but I got sore after the first week and quit.

It’s easy to dwell in the past and judge ourselves a failure, but it doesn’t do any good. What are you going to do now? How are you going to become the person you want to be? Figure out where you want to be in 20 years and then take actions that match your goal. Plant your tree now.

We get to the future one small step at a time. Make every step count.

“You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.”
— Bobby Knight

In some ways, you are your easiest opponent. I mean, after all, you merely have to be better today than you were yesterday. Nobody said you have to be a lot better. You just need to be better. In this case, winning by one point is as good as winning by 100 points.

In other ways, you are your most challenging opponent. This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. A small victory today is great, but you still need to go out and compete again tomorrow. You don’t get a break from life just because you had a good day.

Yesterday prepared you for today. If you won yesterday, then you’re even stronger today. If you failed yesterday, then get your mind pumped up for today because you already proved that you can do this. Either way, decide that today is a day you’re going to win and go make it happen.

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
— Benjamin Franklin

Don’t tell me why you can’t. Tell me how you’re going to make it happen.

The key here is to figure out the actual problem you need to solve. For instance, if you can’t afford a car, maybe the actual problem is that you need a reliable way to get to work. If you can’t seem to lose 10 pounds, maybe the actual problem is that you want to play with your kids without feeling winded.

So how can you solve the real problem? What are your options? Look at those options and make a call. Stay focused on your real goal, and then even if you hit some roadblocks, you have more options.

Options. Not excuses.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
— Mark Twain

What should you do if you don’t know what to do? Well, I think it depends on your specific situation. Are you overwhelmed, or are you bored?

If you’re overwhelmed, then you need to pause. Take a step back and look around. Find the most immediate threat and deal with it. Then move on to the next issue. Handle your challenges one at a time until the situation is under control.

On the other hand, if you’re bored, you need a purpose, a mission for your life. When you’re on a mission, you’re never bored. You need to find that mission. It might take some time to find the purpose of your life. In the meantime, look at what’s right in front of you. What can you do to make your world a little bit better? Find something achievable that you’re willing to do, and then do it.

Whatever your particular situation is, take action. Don’t freeze up and do nothing. Determine to move forward, take that next step, and then do it all over again.

“Man Plans, and God Laughs.”
— Yiddish adage

According to the old saying, you can make God laugh merely by planning. Of course, you have to come up with an actual plan. That’s the hard part, but it’s the necessary part, too.

I think a corollary is that God cries when we go about life with no plan. If we wander about aimlessly, hoping to find success, then we’re counting on getting lucky. Without a plan, we can’t focus our energy on any specific target. When year, after year, we’re still stuck walking in circles, that’s sad.

Now, a plan is hard to make because if we have a plan, then we’re responsible for executing that plan. We need to take the hard steps toward our goal. We need to put in the work. Making a plan also means that we might fail, and we don’t like it when God or anybody else laughs at our failures.

No matter how good your plan is, it will never be perfect. You’ll probably run into unforeseen challenges and obstacles. You’ll probably hit some walls. Maybe you’ll have to throw out the plan, pick up the pieces, and start over. So what? Make God laugh. Set new goals, make new plans, and keep improving. In the end, when your plan finally works, when your hard work finally pays off, pat yourself on the back, take a bow, and laugh.