Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:39 — 6.2MB) | Embed
What’s Done Is Done
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I’m still fiddling around with the audio settings for my new mic, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about looking forward instead of looking back.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that September is the only month with the same number of letters in its name as the number of the month? And did you that the last day of September falls on a different day of the week from the last day of any other month in any given year? Finally, more films have had September in their title than any other month.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
My Wednesday morning routine usually goes something like this; I get out of bed, take care of my morning bathroom business and then put the dogs out. Once they’ve done their business and are back in I feed them and then fix myself something for breakfast. I turn on the TV while I’m eating and watch Sportscentre that I recorded earlier in the morning. It usually plays on a loop all morning long but I like to record it so I can fast forward through the sports I’m not interested in. When Sportscentre is done I turn off the TV, pull out my iPhone and listen to my episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
Why do I listen to my own episode you ask? After all, I already know what I’ve said. I wrote it, I recorded it and I listened to it during editing. So why listen again?
The reason I listen to my SILY episodes on Wednesday mornings is to hear it with a fresh pair of ears. I know that sounds crazy. But I like to hear it through my ear pods just like every other podcast I listen to. It sounds different than when I listen with my studio headphones and I sometimes pick out little things I need to improve on in my editing technique.
The other thing that inevitably happens is that sure as rain, I think of other things I could have said in the episode that would have made it even better. It’s maddening sometimes, especially when I realize that I forgot to mention something I had thought about earlier in the week before composing the episode.
Take last week’s episode for example. I completely forgot to mention how Impostor Syndrome can be very stressful for some women because they’re always second guessing what they’ve done, even when they have no reason to do so. Some women are so afraid of being discovered as frauds that their stress develops into other real health issues.
That was something I had thought of earlier in the week while thinking about my episode but forgot about when it came time to write it.
I can’t help looking back at things I’ve done and finding ways I could have made them better. I’m a creative person, I need to be for my job, so perhaps I suffer from this more than other but I doubt it. I’m sure many of you experience this as well. It’s like I said a few weeks ago, strive for excellence, not perfection. But I can’t help looking back sometimes and seeing all the imperfections that in my mind don’t make it excellent.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a client sign off on a design project telling me they love what I’ve done. Then while preparing the job for the printer or launching the website I see a half dozen or more things I could have improved on. I really need to get it through my head that what’s done is done.
I remember my fine arts class back in college and how much I hated it. I loved the creation process, but I could never seem to be satisfied with any of my pieces. There was always one more brush or pencil stroke I could add. No matter how many people told me they loved the finished work, all I saw were the things I could have done better. I’ve always had a hard time telling myself what’s done is done and move on.
The rust hole in my truck I repaired and repainted. The wall in my bedroom that I painted. The retaining wall around the garden we planted. The faucet in the kitchen I replaced. These are all things that look perfect to others but I see the imperfections. The ever slight bump on the truck I didn’t sand enough. A roller mark in one corner of the bedroom. The retaining wall droops a bit in one corner. And the faucet has a very small scratch where I hit it with a wrench. These things bug me every time I see them. But, what’s done is done and that’s that.
Here’s what I learned.
This episode probably isn’t very helpful to you. After all, there isn’t really a lesson to be learned. I just wanted it brought to light that it’s normal to feel this way. I know, as I’ve mentioned before on this podcast, perfection isn’t achievable. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to come as close as I can. Thinking back a couple of weeks to the analogy I gave of the high school basketball player being at the top of his game. He achieved excellence at the high school level but he still needed to improve before he could achieve excellence in college and again in the pros. I’m sure when he’s playing in the NBA and he looks back at videos from his high school days he’ll see the mistakes he made and what he needed to improve on.
Taking that into account, I need to start looking back at all my mistakes and just accept that what’s done is done. I also need to see those imperfections not as failures, but as learning experiences, so that next time I need to do something similar I’ll be even better at it than I was before.
I guess there was a lesson to be learned today after all.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I would love to know what you though of this episode. Share on our Facebook group at Facebook.com/groups/stuffilearnedyesterday. Join the conversation.
You can Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and Facebook.com/GoldenSpiralMedia. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
[sc:stuff]