Questão 30612

Are You Training Yourself to Fail?

Did you get done what you wanted to get done today?

By Peter Bregman. September 13, 2011 / Psychology Today

Some people are naturally pre-disposed to being

    highly productive. They start their days with a clear

    and reasonable intention of what they plan to do, and

    then they work diligently throughout the day, sticking

5  to their plans, focused on accomplishing their most

    important priorities, until the day ends and they've

    achieved precisely what they had expected. Each day

    moves them one day closer to what they intend to

    accomplish over the year.

10    I am, unfortunately, not one of those people.

    Left to my own devices, I rarely end my day with

    the satisfaction of a plan well executed. My natural

    inclination is to start my morning with a long and overly

    ambitious list of what I hope to accomplish and push

15 myself with sheer will to accomplish it. I'm prone to

    be so busy — answering emails, multitasking, taking

    phone calls, taking care of errands — that, without

    intervention, I would get very little of importance done.

    And then, exhausted by my busyness,

20 but unsatisfied by how little of importance I'd

    accomplished, I would distract myself further by doing

    things that made me feel better in the moment, if not

    accomplished — like browsing the internet or eating

    something sweet.

25    Our instincts most often drive us toward instant

    gratification. And the world around us conspires to

    lure us off task. Given total freedom, most of us would

    spend far too much time browsing websites and

    eating sweets. And being totally responsive to our

30 environments would just have us running around like

    crazy catering to other people's agendas.

    For me, the allure of accomplishing lots of little

    details would often override my focus on the big

    things I value. Each morning I would try to change my

35 natural tendency by exerting self-control. I would talk

    to myself about how, starting this morning, I would be

    more focused, psych myself up to have a productive

    day, and commit to myself that I wouldn't do any

    errands until the important work was done.

40    It almost never worked. Certainly not reliably.

    And so, without understanding it at the time, I

    was teaching myself to fail. People talk about failure

    — I talk about failure — as critical to learning. But

    what if we don't learn? What if we do the same

45 things, repeatedly, hoping for different results but not

    changing our behavior?

    Then we are training ourselves to fail repeatedly.

    Because the more we continue to make the

    same mistakes, the more we ingrain the ineffective

50 behaviors into our lives. Our failures become our

    rituals, our rituals become our habits, and our habits

    become our identity. We no longer experience an

    unproductive day; we become unproductive people.

    You can't get out of this pattern by telling yourself

55 you're a productive person. You're smarter than that;

    you won't believe yourself and the data won't support

    the illusion.

    You have to climb out the same way you climbed

    in: with new rituals.

60    For me, the best way to discover the most

    effective rituals to help me achieve my most important

    priorities was through trial and error. Every evening

    I looked at what worked and repeated it the next. I

    looked at what didn't and stopped it.

65    What I found is that rather than trying to develop

    super-human discipline and focus, I needed to rely

    on a process to make it more likely that I would be

    focused and productive and less likely that I would be

    scattered and ineffective.

70    Rituals like these: Spending five minutes in the

    morning to place my most important work onto my

    calendar, stopping every hour to ask myself whether

    I'm sticking to my plan, and spending five minutes in

    the evening to learn from my successes and failures.

75 Answering my emails in chunks at predetermined

    times during the day instead of whenever they come

    in. And never letting anything stay on my to do list

    for more than three days (after which I either do it

    immediately, schedule it in my calendar, or delete

80 it).

    It doesn't take long for these rituals to become

    habits and for the habits to become your identity. And

    then, you become a productive person.

    The trick then is to stay productive. Once your

85 identity changes, you are at risk of letting go of your

    rituals. You don't need them anymore, you think to

    yourself, because you are now a productive person.

    You no longer suffer from the problem the rituals

    saved you from.

90    But that's a mistake. Rituals don't change us.

    They simply modify our behavior as long as we

    practice them. Once we stop, we lose their benefit.

    In other words, being productive — forever more —

    requires that you maintain the rituals that keep you

95 productive — forever more.

    I would love to say that I am now one of those

    people who is naturally pre-disposed to being highly

    productive. But I'm not. There's nothing natural about

    productivity for me.

Available in:Retrieved on: Sept. 17, 2011.

Based on the meanings in the text,