“A man can fall many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” John Burroughs

A message from Terry:  Things go wrong.  Despite our best planning and preparation, despite all of the precautions that we put in place, things all too frequently go wrong.

It’s a fact of life. Few days – if any – go entirely according to plan. Therefore, it makes good sense for us to go beyond just having a plan of action.  What we also need is a plan of re-action.

Sometimes, it feels as if the universe is messing with us, tossing a monkey wrench into the works just to test our reflexes and our resolve. Other times, someone is clearly the source of the problem. And, occasionally, the source of that problem turns out to be…us.

Oops.

When that happens, there is a natural temptation to duck and cover, distancing ourselves from what has gone wrong. But the first step that we take after a problem arises can make all of the difference in the world, so I have a suggestion. The next time things go wrong and a problem rears its ugly head, if there is any chance at all that we are a contributing party to it, we would be wiser to stop, take a deep breath, and own it.

By claiming the problem as our own, and thinking constructively and creatively about what we can do to put it right, we vastly improve our odds of being able to fix it and move ahead with the day. Denial and avoidance waste time and sap morale. But when we’re proactive about the situation, adopting a take-charge attitude, adrenaline can help us raise our game to the next level and get the day back on track.

Can you recall the last time that a problem de-railed the day? If that same problem arose again, what might you do differently to set things right?