April 5, 2025

The moment you realize that you’ve been killing your own progress, you have a choice in how to move forward.

Most people, when confronted with mistakes they’ve made, don’t focus on the matter at hand. Instead, they start getting down on themselves.

"Why didn’t I learn faster? Why didn’t I see this coming? Why did I make this stupid mistake?"

Although "why" can have some value in explaining the past, it often has very little utility in getting things done in the present.

Instead of falling into the "why" loop, I like to invite my clients into the "what" loop.

What can I learn from this?

It’s an immediate shift from victimhood to ownership, from bleeding energy to creating energy.

When I ask, "What can I learn?" I assume there’s something to learn, and I’m now looking for that—far more powerful than asking myself why I am such a failure.

Asking myself why I’m such a failure only reinforces that belief. But both being a failure and being a success are just stories I tell myself. A thousand years from now, none of it will matter, and all of what I do today might be judged differently. But it matters now for the life I live, the energy I have, and my ability to pick myself up and keep going.

Imagine if, as a child, you sat there for hours after your first failed attempt to walk, wondering why you were such a failure and why you hadn’t gotten it right yet. You’d still be crawling around, wondering why everyone else was walking while you were still a "failure." You’d probably come up with some great explanations for why—but they wouldn’t help you walk.

This applies everywhere.

A creative person, a doer, an owner doesn’t run around wondering "why." They ask, "What"

What can I learn from this? What’s missing? What worked? What didn’t work? What needs to happen so this doesn’t happen again?

They stay creative, they keep looking, and they don’t make themselves wrong. That gives them power.

So, the next time you mess up, you have a choice: be a whining "why-er" or be a choosing creator.