Have you ever looked back at a situation or decision and think, "Boy, I really made a bad decision there." Sure we all have. The other day I was reading through the book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court by the famous college basketball coach Jon Wooden. I highly recommend this book; it gives little stories or thoughts for you to read. You can pick up your own copy here. The other day he was talking about looking back on "bad decisions."
Wooden basically said that you don't make bad decisions. We make decisions at a specific point in time with the information we have available to us. And if once time passes that decision turns out to have negative results, we have the tendency of looking back calling this decision a bad decision. I know in my life this has always been a fear of mine...making a bad decision. I would find that sometimes I would even avoid making the decision altogether for fear it might be a bad one. Thinking about that I have to just shake my head at all the opportunities I have lost out of a fear of a bad decision.
Wooden's perspective freed me of that fear. Wooden basically says we don't make BAD decisions...we simply make decisions that did not work out. And that there is not value in the worry about these decisions. They are in the past!
So as you start this new year if you are being weighted down by past "bad decisions" tell your self its ok...they were decisions that just didn't work out. Learn from them. And move on!!!
wow, Dawn and i were just talking about this very topic this week! i apprecaite your insights. i know that i have allowed myself to get bogged-down in decisions of the past and miss out on the opportunities of the present (i'm like a farmer plowing his field, but still glancing over his shoulder). anyway, good stuff.
keep up the good work!
Posted by: john | January 17, 2008 at 10:43 AM