You have a great new idea, and you formulate an inspired plan. You get started, and you are excited. A few days later, the idea has lost the luster from the initial inception, and now you really understand how the implementation will be. You are now seriously doubting your ability and desire to put in the effort it would take to see this to fruition. Just like that, the idea fades as quickly as it was created, and you are left back where you started or potentially in a worse position because you just spent a bunch of energy and effort on another lost cause.
Sound familiar?
This is more common than you think. People do not like to talk about this because it is a failure, and it exposes the weakest part of our internal resolve, which is often lacking. This happens in our personal lives but also in our organizations. How often have you been part of an initiative at work that starts fast and furious only to fail, and a few weeks later, no one is talking about it anymore. What always gets me is how often a company will launch internal initiatives, change organizations, and create new mandates and guidelines, only to have no improvement whatsoever. So, this challenge we experience personally extends into other aspects of our lives as well.
You want to get healthy, and you eat really well for a few days, then you fail because it is just too hard to maintain. You want to get in shape, so you get a gym membership and go to the gym for a few weeks, and then you fizzle out, and so does your ambition. You want to learn a new language. You want to improve in a subject at school. You want to write more. Read more. Sleep more. Drink more water. The list is endless. Why do we fail so frequently and often at these many aspirations? What key ingredient is missing?
Watch my video on this subject, here
Repetition.
I know that is not what I want to hear. I really do not want to believe this, but it is the cold, hard truth. You will only get better at something through repetition. Any awesome idea will only produce results if the execution is repeated over and over again despite failure. Without the ingredient of repetition, nothing works. Any improvement incremental or otherwise required frequency. If you are not willing to put in the effort each and every day, repeat, repeat, repeat, then you will not get better. Improvement and repetition are inseparably connected together.
Try. Fail. Try. Fail. Try. Success.
There is really nothing more to say on this subject. Any good idea can be good or even spectacular with repetition and slow incremental improvement. This is what will happen: you will start trying, and you will fail. You will learn. You will tweak what you are doing. You will become more efficient over time. You will add more capacity to take on more challenging tasks. You will bring the original vision to reality. However, this will only happen with a committed plan to repeat, repeat, repeat.
