Always Review (Never Ruminate*)
At the end of each you should play back the tapes of your performance. The result should either applaud you or prod you. – Jim Rohn
The only time we should spend in the past is to review, understand and learn.
Once we have done so, it is time to imagine what we want to create, make our plan and get to work.
Yes, we can take time for the “applause” Mr. Rohn mentions above, but only briefly – just long enough to savor and re-affirm our deep capabilities.
The great thing about not patting ourselves on the back for too long is that we shouldn’t spend too much time thinking about our failures, or mis-steps either.
When something doesn’t go right we need only understand where we went wrong and what we must do to correct things – we must let our tapes “prod” us sometimes.
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* Ruminate is defined as the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions. Rumination is similar to worry except rumination focuses on bad feelings and experiences from the past, whereas worry is concerned with potential bad events in the future.