The Art of Course-Correcting

the art of course correcting do you beat yourself up for not being perfect or do you think over and over again how you could have done something differently or maybe you lie awake at night and think about something that happened 10 years ago that still makes you cringe I'm Jana Hennemann and today we're talking about the art of course correcting course correcting is what some people call failing forward which is fine personally I like to call them learning experiences but that's just my personal preference so what is course correct ction how can I learn something without beating myself up every time I make a mistake and what does it take to be nice to myself did you know our first trip to the moon uh NASA was only 3 to 4% on course the rest of the time they were course correcting tap in that Rudder so to speak technically we were failing 96 to 97% of the time but we still made it so how did they do this without considering every mistake they made as a m mive failure this is what we're going to talk about because it's important because when you're on the road of going to where you want to be you have to be nice to yourself or else the journey is not going to be fun and life's about the journey right it's not always about the destination so number one quit trying to be important or smart or useful often times we put these demands on ourselves and then when we don't get what we want we beat ourselves up so I remember living in Malaysia and my daughter was between homes she was between her dad's home and my home and every time she would come over usually he would drop her off on a Monday morning she'd come in and the first thing she'd say was Mommy I want a cookie and I tell her well that's fine you can have a cookie after lunch and she would say no Mommy I want a cookie now and I say no we're not going to have a cookie now we will have one after we eat our lunch and she would throw a tantrum as toddlers do and she would say well fine I don't love you I only love Daddy and this really perplexed me like here I am trying to be a good mom I'm trying to be smart trying to be useful and I have this little toddler saying that she doesn't love me so my mentor happened to be giving a talk at the time and I went into the back of the room and um as you can imagine I I don't want to be seen I just want to sit down and listen and get the information and without him knowing that this was something that was bugging me he pointed at me he looked right at me and he says what makes you so important why do you think you deserve all of this from your child now I was kind of baffled by it because again this was something that I had been struggling with for a few weeks uh that was happening every time my daughter was dropped back off over at my house and he went on to say as he like just kind of looked right through me he's like it is your job to love if you receive any love back it is a bonus you are supposed to be so filled in loving your child that it fills you naturally you don't need anything else outside you it is not her job to love me it is my job to love her so he was kind of harsh when he told me this so I went back and I think for a couple of days I kind of laid in bed and cried because I've always been brought up that hey you're important hey you're smart hey you're you're unique and special but what this had done throughout my life is it had kind of created this ego about me like hey I deserve this I I deserve this from you my child and he was the one he could see it and he said no that's not right it was funny because when Mia did come back eventually a few days later the same thing unfolded hi Mom I want a cookie like you can have a cookie you can have one after lunch well I want a cookie now well you're not going to get one now honey well that's why I only love Daddy and I don't love you and so I looked at her and I said well that's okay I love you even if you don't love me it was like something shifted inside me and it no longer hurt me it shouldn't have hurt me in the beginning we all know that toddlers do whatever it is they can to they're trying to figure out how to get what they want but it did it emotionally bugged me um anyways I told her you don't have to love me that's okay uh I love you no matter what and then she looked up at me and these tears kind of swelled in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around me she goes say sorry Mommy I love you so much so it shifted but I needed to understand that I don't need to be important I don't need to be useful I don't need to be smart I can I can just be me right I can get rid of the ego number two you can respond to a situation or you can react to a situation you can either respond to life or you can react to it you can respond to a challenge or you can react to it think of it like this and there's there's two things in life there's there's Dharma which is an upward Creative Energy and then there's Karma which is a downward energy uh karma is something like I could not help being born to John and Carol Marino in San Pedro California as a female I couldn't I couldn't really I didn't really have a say in that but what I do with my life is that Creative Energy it's that Dharma despite how I was born and what I am working with I can still create what it is I want to experience in this world I mean you can also think of this like a mama bear and Cub a mama bear doesn't go down to the river and get all the fish that she can so her cub never has to fish and we'll have enough fish for the rest of his life no she takes the the baby cup down and she teaches him how to fish for himself that's the difference between reacting and responding she's teaching her cub respondibility reacting would be going and trying to get all the fish that she can because she's afraid her cub won't be able to survive if she doesn't do this no she teaches him how to be resp respond able in a situation number three embrace the suck Abraham Lincoln once said the best way to destroy my enemies is to make them my friends sure I can fight them but if I respond to them and I make them my friends they are no longer my enemies so I actually have a really funny story about this with my daughter and I do not want anyone to take this wrong she was raised in Malaysia um she was brought up more Buddhist than anything and uh when we first moved back to the state she was watching this anime and for those of you who don't know there's a lot of Catholic uh connotations in Japanese anime and so she's watching and she pauses it and she says mom how come everyone in here in this movie wants to kill the devil and again she wasn't brought up Christian she was brought up Buddhist so I just kind of explained to her well baby um you know he was kind of a little bit of a rebel um he did some not so nice things and now people don't really like him and she kind kind of stopped and she goes mom and she was only seven at the time Mom if I ever meet The Devil I'm going to make him my friend and I remember thinking oh my gosh that's so cute don't say that out here we live in the Bible Belt people are going to think that we're satanists or something when that's not the case in Buddhism there is more you know the Dharma the karma the yin and the Yang um so there's good and the bad there's bad and the good everything's neutral um so that's kind of a funny story and then I remember looking at her and thinking wow you're lot more Christian than a lot of Christians that I know you know thought oh honey yeah that's great that's awesome but don't tell people that so it's a little joke that we have now so what are some of the biggest challenges you're facing what are some of the things you're struggling with have you considered embracing them have you thought about throwing your arms around them and giving them a hug I know it's easier said than done but I'm a firm believer that if you sit with a challenge or a problem long enough and you start looking at it neutrally the answer comes about on its own number four nothing is a failure you know whenever you're watching a baby learn how to walk they don't try to walk fall down once and then cry and sit in a corner and never try it again no they pull themselves back up on the couch they're drooling they you know have stuff all over them maybe they have a crappy diaper and they just keep going at it again and again and as parents we don't look at our child that's learning how to walk and every time they fall down we go why aren't you getting it it's the easiest thing in the world aren't you some kind of idiot or something we don't do that in fact when my daughter was learning to walk her dad and I every time she fell down we'd go yay and we'd raise our hands so that she learned how to embrace that mistake and funny as she grew up she never beat herself up for making those mistakes she'd just Shug her shoulders and go okay I'll do better next time and then walk off and was mostly emotionally unaffected by it the point is is is sometimes we are our own worst enemies none of us have it all figured out in summary course correcting has a lot to do with being able to forgive yourself it's about embracing your blunders and your mishaps and embracing the process the journey or the suck I'm Jana Hennemann challenging you to be nicer to yourself to course correct without beating yourself up and to embrace the journey so thanks for tuning in be sure to like follow And subscribe to social channels and I will see you this time next week [Music]