Alright, let’s talk about this thing I started calling my “big miss book”. It’s not really a physical book you can buy, more like a practice I got into after, well, missing the mark spectacularly a few too many times.
It started pretty simply. I found myself making the same kinds of mistakes, especially on bigger projects or important decisions. You know the feeling? You finish something, it doesn’t quite work out, and you think, “Hang on, this feels familiar.” That got old, fast.
Getting Started – Just Writing It Down
So, I grabbed a plain notebook. Nothing fancy. And I started writing down the screw-ups. The big ones. The ones that really stung or cost time or money.
- I’d just finished a project that went sideways. Instead of just moving on, I sat down and wrote what happened.
- I didn’t analyze it much at first. Just the facts: What I tried to do. What actually happened. How I felt about it (usually pretty rubbish).
- I forced myself to be specific. Not just “project failed,” but why. Was it bad planning? Did I ignore someone’s advice? Did I rush a crucial step?
Honestly, it felt a bit weird at first. Like dwelling on the negative. But I kept at it.
The Process – Seeing the Ugly Patterns
After I had a few entries in this notebook, maybe over a few months, I started actually reading back through them. That was the tough part. It’s not fun looking your failures straight in the eye, you know?
But then, patterns started jumping out. Real clear patterns.
- I’d often overestimate how quickly I could get things done. Classic miss.
- Sometimes, I didn’t listen properly when people raised concerns. Just heard what I wanted to hear. Another big miss, right there in black and white.
- There was this one time I completely misjudged a situation because I relied on assumptions instead of checking the facts. Saw that pattern pop up again later in a different context.
It wasn’t about blaming myself into a hole. It was more like… okay, this is the mechanism. This is how I tend to mess up. Seeing it written down, collected in one place, made it impossible to ignore or explain away as just bad luck.
What Came Out Of It – Using the “Book”
So, this “big miss book,” this collection of my own foul-ups, became a kind of tool. It wasn’t about beating myself up; it was about learning. For real this time.
Before starting something new, especially something important, I’d actually flip through the notebook. Sounds crazy, maybe. But I’d ask myself: “Am I about to walk into one of these old traps again?”
Did it stop me from ever making mistakes again? Of course not. I still mess up. But the big, catastrophic misses? They got fewer. It forced a bit of humility, made me pause and think, “Have I really thought this through? Am I listening? Am I being realistic?”
It’s an ongoing thing. Still jot stuff down sometimes. It’s just a simple notebook, but keeping that record, that personal “big miss book,” made a real difference in how I approach things. Forced honesty, I guess. And that’s something you can’t just read about; you kind of have to live it and, well, write it down.
