Learn From Your Mistakes

“You can do it all!” “Multi-task!” “Push yourself to the limit!” “You can sleep when you’re dead!”

A lot of phrases that we hear in the 21st century.  These ideas of always being on the go, go, go. Push yourself to the extreme at all costs: sleep, friends, family, health. It will all be worth it.

The truth is, though there may be good intentions behind these phrases, they are not healthy and they are not right.

The result of continual pushing and driving our engines in the red is burnout. And when we hit burnout, there’s a lot to clean up afterwards.

It’s hard to resist, we have major figures in the world that seem to be able to do it all. J.J. Abrams and James Franco are two people in the entertainment industry that come to mind. They seem to be able to do it all: directing, writing, producing, acting.

But I also know that I can’t compare the messy back stage of my life to someone else’s front stage. I have no idea what their personal lives are like. I have no idea what people or teams they have in place that handle all of their work or issues so they can be involved in so many different projects. And I certainly don’t have personal insight into the struggles that they have to endure on a daily basis. More

 (This is the third and final part of a story that tells the story of how I made a poor decision that left me unemployed for 11 months. For the first part read here. For the second part read here.)

Months had gone by and I still had no regular work. The bank account dwindling dangerously low. I was consumed with anxiety on a daily (if not hourly basis). Forward motion had come to a stop. I was doing anything, but addressing the issue, hoping beyond hope that some magical big break would come my way.

I would try to distract myself by taking the family out to eat or going to a movie, but would find my mind drifting during our outings.

We’re running out of money? What am I going to do? What kind of job can I get that will pay our expenses?

Then one day, while I was out, I had a very calm and gentle thought.

You need to go back to Disney

I was fortunate when I had left working for Disney. I had exited with grace and had not burned any bridges on my way out the door.

I started reaching out to a couple of friends who were co-workers and managers and asked if I might have a chance to return. They said it looked hopeful.

One afternoon I made a phone call to the head of casting at Disneyland. She was incredibly gracious and got me a part-time position in the park.

I was nervous coming back.

I had a lot of emotions returning to Disney. One was a feeling of failure.

I had left thinking that I was just moving on to bigger and better things. Now, I feared I would be met by fellow actors who would look at me disapprovingly and say sarcastically “Well, look who’s back!”

I did get some of that.

But mostly I was received with open arms by a lot of people at work. More than anything else, I felt some hope. I was given the chance to use my abilities and skills again.

I put my nose to the grindstone and took any work that came my way. Including those television extra jobs that I didn’t enjoy so much.

I was in a place where I couldn’t be picky about what I was doing. I was just grateful for anything that I could do.

Within a few months I started getting more work than I had ever had as an actor.

I was cast in more shows at the Park than before, and soon I was cast in more television commercial work than I had ever booked previously.

Something had broken through. Or what I should say, was that something had been broken… my pride.

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It’s not always puppies and unicorns with everything going your way. There are no promises that everything in this life is supposed to be perfect. There are trials.

But what are you saying when you’re going through a difficult trial?

You’ve got to watch your mouth.

There’s no denying that we can have a negative verbal reaction when we receive bad news. It’s like hitting your finger with a hammer… there’s likely to be some colorful language to come out.

There’s a danger, however, in letting negative words continually flow out of you. Rick Warren has a great observation with this. Anger is not something that when you fill up with it, you just let it out and get rid of it. Anger is a little more dangerous than that. When it starts coming out of us, it’s like a machine that can keep producing more and more and more anger. It’s like turning on the switch to the Negative Emotion Factory. This is the same factory that can produce plenty of other negative emotions: sadness, envy, resentment, self-pity.

There is nothing wrong with talking about troubles that you’ve gone through. Keep in mind that words fuel your feelings, both negative and positive.

Years ago I used to have a constant phrase I would use when people would ask me how I was.

“I’m exhausted.”

It was my way of letting people know how hard I was working and how I was juggling all the challenges of work, family and personal life. I said it ALL the time.

Until my wife corrected me after we went to a friend’s party. She had overheard a number of my interactions with other people that night, and the only thing I kept saying was how I exhausted I was. It wasn’t painting our life in a very positive way.
After the party that night, I made a concentrated effort to remove the phrase “I’m exhausted” or “I’m tired” out of my vocabulary. Here’s the strange thing… several weeks later after not saying these phrases, I actually started feeling more rested and energetic. My negative phrase and been physically and emotionally running me into the ground for months.

I challenge you not only watch your mouth with the negative thoughts and emotions, but to replace those words with  phrases that will build you up.

“And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.” James 3:4-5 (NLT)

What negative phrases do you find yourself automatically saying? How could you flip that into a positive? Share your thoughts on my Facebook page.

You want to make everyone happy. You don’t want to let anyone down.

You want to stretch yourself and grow, but instead you find yourself worn out and exhausted.

There may even be a part of your faith which makes you think that you must say “yes” to every request that comes your way because it is your duty.

Even though there may be good intentions with saying “yes”, it is not always the best thing to do.

We have to learn to say “no”.

There are only a set amount of hours in the day and week. In that week, we have to sleep, eat, enjoy our family, friends and loved ones in addition to work and other responsibilities.

When we say “yes” to something, we are impacting these areas of our lives.

In his book “Essentialism“, Greg McKeown talks about this concept. When we don’t say “no” we are saying “yes” to something else by default. That’s not good. Because now all of our time energy and effort is being spent on tasks that we weren’t supposed to be doing in the first place.

I know this first hand.

Back in 2005, I left my work at The Disneyland Resort to pursue acting in commercials full tme. But I didn’t have a plan. We had some money as a buffer, but I just thought opportunities would present themselves.

Well, several things presented themselves. However, it wasn’t what I expected.

I found myself getting over involved in my sons’ school, since I was now a “stay at home dad.” My continual automatic volunteering led me to overextend myself. I couldn’t say no. All of my energy and effort was now being put into projects where people would ask for help. My default answer of “yes” resulted in a never ending cycle of getting frustrated, stretching myself too thin and leaving me with no time to look for work. Our funds soon depleted. I was very fortunate to be allowed back to my work at Disneyland, but I learned a valuable lesson.

You can’t say “Yes” to everything. No matter how important it seems.

I learned another valuable lesson from McKeown’s “Essentialsim” about making decisions. Ask yourself, “What percentage do I feel like this is the right thing to do?” I’ve had opportunities that have come my way where I felt “Yeah, I feel like that’s about 60% the right thing to do.” That number doesn’t sound so bad…why not, it’s more than 50% right?

Wrong!

What it we took that same percenetage of 60% and looked at it as a score on a test? It would be an F or D minus grade at best.

And that’s a life decision! Why would we accept failing grades in our life decisions?

If you are not feeling 90% or more regarding a decision, if it’s not an automatic “YES!!!! I WANT TO DO THAT, BE A PART OF THAT!” then don’t agree to it.

It’s not easy to say “no”, but remember you are making room for that “yes” that can lead to the things you really want to be doing in your life.

Where are areas of your life that you are having a difficult time saying “no”? Let me know on my Facebook page.

Cards on the table. I’ve gone through a rough patch.
I was doing so well. Writing, putting out podcasts and content.
Then my schedule got stretched too thin.

I had to make a choice between doing the right thing and what I wanted to do.
So I had to hit the pause on content.
Then I got sick.
Hit by a flu-like cold in the middle of summer that knocked me out for over a week. Residual illness stuck with me for a couple of weeks after that until I found I had a sinus infection.  This has happened while my wife Kate is dealing with the severe illness of a family member.
When it rains, it pours.
It’s lightened up a bit.
We’re not out of the woods yet, but we have been able to come up for air.
However, I’ve found myself paralyzied, not finding the inspiration to get out of the funk.
Maybe, as dysfunctional as it sounds, I’ve been embracing the funk, the inaction, because it’s familiar to me. I know what it feels like.
But I can’t stay here. I’m going to have to act, because inaction is also a choice.
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep putting out podcasts. Because it’s not about me. It’s about helping someone.
Someone who might be in a state of paralysis and needs to know that he/she can get out of it as well if they just sit down and start.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be a mountain of work. Just a little bit at a time
It’s time to dust off Steven Pressfield. It’s time to start listening to prayer if I can’t speak it. It’s time to open my mouth and work through it with Kate, and call my friends for support.
I’ll get through this and so will you.