Mondays are for mistakes.

Today's mistake: waiting to be picked.
 
When’s the first time you remember not being good enough?
When’s the first time you gut cut from the team?  Fired from a job?  Passed over for a promotion?  Didn’t get the solo or the part?
Maybe you were last to get picked for the team at recess.
Maybe you didn’t get the solo as a junior higher.
Maybe you got cut from the team in high school.
Maybe you didn’t get the job you wanted out of college.


One of my first memories of not being good enough was not making the high school basketball team as a sophomore.  A lot of my identity was wrapped up in basketball.  My folks sacrificed so I could have opportunities to get better as basketball.  But when it came time for tryouts my sophomore year, I wasn’t good enough. 

I think in life we wait to be picked.  We think getting picked (getting the part, making the team, getting the promotion) validate us and when I am not picked, it somehow devalidates (not sure if that’s a word!) me. 

Just last week I didn’t get picked for something I wanted to be a part of.  And when I don’t get picked, I have a tendency to do two things.  I either go into self-sabotage mode and say there must be something wrong with me.  And that I suck.  And that I am no good (no, I am not fishing for compliments here, just taking you into my mind a bit!).
Or, I quit.    
Two things to wrap up with:

1. First, pick yourself.  Don’t wait on others to pick you.  If you want the role, audition for it.  If you want the job, apply for it.  If you want the date, ask for it.  If you want the raise, work for it.  What’s the worst thing that can happen?  You get rejected.  You get denied.  And I’m learning I’d rather be denied or rejected then ignored or hidden or waiting.
2. Second, when you don’t get picked choose to improve.  I interpret “not getting picked” as a cosmic sign I am to stop doing what I was doing.  I didn’t go out for basketball my junior year because I had this fixed mindset that once I was cut, I was permanently cut.  I didn’t even think at the time to get better at the sport.  I didn’t take it as a challenge to get better and come back and prove something.  I took it as finality.  I never saw being cut from basketball as the opportunity to improve.  If I am not getting picked, that tells me I need to improve.  I need to grow.  I need to get better.  I need to gain more skills or more knowledge. I need to change a tactic.  But not getting picked is only a sign to quit if I choose to quit.

Share a time when you didn’t get picked for something in the comments

Happy Cyber Monday! 

I interrupt your online shopping to bring you today’s mistake: not taking my own advice.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how to get a meeting with a principal using some different subject lines to get the principal’s attention to open the email.  I even wrote that no matter your work or profession, most of us send email.  And most of us want the email we send to be opened and read, and so being a touch more creative with our subject lines is a good skill to have.  It’s an especially good skill when the receiver of your email doesn’t know you very well or you really want the email to be read.

Also a couple weeks ago, I was trying to connect a church with a school.   The subject line of the email I sent to the school was this: Church partner for ABC School (obviously the school’s name wasn’t ABC, but you get the drift).

I didn’t even follow my own advice! 

I sent out perhaps the most generic, most vanilla, most boring (or is it boringest?) subject line I could write.  I didn’t do any work on the subject line.  I didn’t give the school any reason to open the email.  I wasn’t creative.  It was haphazard and quick and I just expected the school to open the email.

Breaking news: they didn’t.

Who knows if a few more minutes of thought would have led to the school opening the email?  Who knows if brainstorming 10 or 20 subject lines would have led to an opened email and led to a beneficial partnership?

​Sure, the story has a somewhat happy ending, at least for the church, as we were able to connect them with a different school and it’s a good fit and yes things can work out.  Like I get that.  I get all of that.  But I’m not proud of this instance where I failed to take my own advice.

When have you not taken your own advice?  Or what’s some advice you do your best to follow?  Let us know in the comments.