All this talk in my last few postings about change, awareness, and energy brings to mind something I call the Philosophy of ER. I developed it formally a couple of decades ago to offset all the talk about failure. First, you have to understand that I don’t believe in failure; I don’t think that someone has truly failed unless they’re dead. As long as they’re breathing, the worst bums on skid row have the potential to change, i.e., the possibility is there, even if the likelihood is not. The talk at that time, however, focused on setting a goal and if it wasn’t achieved as stated, then you had failed.

I found myself working with a lot of people (including myself) whose self esteem was at best badly bruised, at worst like Swiss cheese. They were constantly mentioning how they had failed at this or that, but in more detailed discussions it turned out that although they hadn’t achieved their stated goal within the deadline, the goals and deadlines (one or both) weren’t exactly reality based or had changed along the way and not been restated.

Yes, it is good for people to set goals with delivery dates as long as they are achievable—not easy, but achievable. When you set goals without taking into account minor details, such as friends/family/spouse/kids/working/sleeping/eating, then you’re setting yourself up. Besides, we all need an ongoing sense of accomplishment, especially for those things that can’t be done in a few days, to sustain the long term effort that big goals take—thus came the Philosophy of ER.

Over the last couple of decades I’ve ERed almost everything (even when it’s grammatically incorrect).

• I may not be wise, but I’m wisER.
• I may not be rich, but I’m richER.
• I may not be patient, but I’m patientER

You get the idea.

So start ERing today and tomorrow you too will be happiER, smartER, healthiER and successfulER. Just keep reminding yourself that to err is human, to ER, divine.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Communication, Culture, Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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