Monday Motivation – Stop Repeating Mistakes!

A friend recently posted this on his Facebook wall:

“Tried a local dry cleaner I’ve never tried before. He lost my shirt. Gave me a bunch of excuses, including “This always happens with people I don’t know.” Really? Really?”

Wow. Just…wow.

“This always happens with people I don’t know.”

To reiterate what my friend said, really???

Here’s a clue: If this always happens, whenever a new customer comes in, perhaps you should fix the situation so it stops happening!

Clearly, this dry cleaner is an idiot. And my friend is not going back there.

The rest of us, however, can take away a useful lesson without losing our shirts (literally):

If you consistently mess something up, you have no excuse not to fix the problem. Saying, “oh well, I always do this in this situation,” is just not good enough.

If something unforeseen happens, (Ding Happens!) you can be forgiven for dropping the ball. However, if you keep making the same mistake when the same situation keeps coming up, then you have no excuse to continue messing up.

If the dry cleaner keeps losing shirts when he doesn’t know the person, then he should:

1. Develop a system to stem the tide of “shirt loss.”
2. Hire someone to help him with this issue
3. Stop taking on new customers

If you went to a dry cleaner who lost your clothes and gave you a lame excuse like, “this always happens with people I don’t know,” you would probably blow your top. And yet, I bet there are areas in your life where some situation repeatedly pops up, and you handle it poorly every time, and then say, “This always happens to me in this situation.”

Maybe you’re persistently late. Or there is one type of customer that just gets under your skin. Or a certain activity stresses you out. Or you always misplace your keys.

Whatever it is, if you are aware of it and you don’t take steps to deal with it, well, then, you are no better than the idiot dry cleaner.

If you want to start making excuses and start dealing with your recurring problems, here are three ways to do it:

1) Develop a System

A little system goes a long way

This is probably the easiest and cheapest method. If you have a recurring problem, it’s probably because you are consistently trying to solve it with an inappropriate solution. For the dry cleaner, he did ok when he knew his customers. However, when he tried to apply his “old customer” system to his new customers, he messed up. He needs a new system to deal with his new customers.

Maybe he puts them immediately in a separate area. Maybe he takes a Polaroid of the customer so he can attach a face to the clothing. Maybe he takes care of those items personally, as soon as he can.

The exact solution doesn’t matter; what’s important is that, if you keep making the same mistake over and over, you create some system to take care of it.

2) Get Help

Don't be afraid to get some help

Our dry cleaning friend could have hired someone more organized than him to handle the in-taking and tracking of dry cleaning orders (or assigned that task to someone who already worked for him). Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and understanding yours is critical to your success.

For example, if you “always mess up your taxes,” then get help and hire an accountant. Simple.

You don’t always have to pay someone either. You can get family members to help you. Trade services. Find an intern.

Get creative. Get serious. And for the love of God, if you need to, get help!

3) Change Your Environment

You don't have to pack up and move out, but at least remove the offending situation...

The dry cleaner, if he was unable to fix his problem or hire someone to handle it for him, could have simply stopped taking new customers.

I know, I know, that would be a stupid move, but it is one solution. And you can apply that approach to other situations in a much less stupid way.

For example, if you know that getting stuck in morning rush hour traffic “always gets you so mad that you start your day pissed off,” why not go to work earlier or later? You may be able to flex your hours at work. If you can’t, consider going to work earlier, before traffic, and going to a gym to work out, or a coffee shop for some breakfast, or even to your desk and just spending some personal time reading.

If you know something is going to persistently be a problem for you, remove it from your life so it stops tripping you up.

Everyone drops the ball on occasion. But if you keep dropping the ball and keep making lame excuses like, “this always happen to me,” then you have two options:

1. Do something about it
2. Be an idiot dry cleaner.

The choice is up to you!

***
Want help removing and dealing with some of the recurring problems in your life? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!

About

By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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