I spent some time worrying about something that didn’t happen recently.
I’ve written eight times about worry in the past three years. In these posts, I’ve covered the perils of worry in detail – e.g. it means suffering twice, is a triple whammy, etc. Over the course of the past decade, I’ve probably written about worry over twenty times – each time attempting to teach myself to deal with it better.
Thanks to these posts, I have gotten better at dealing with worry. No question about that.
But, I clearly haven’t learned. At least not learned in the sense of “to learn and not to do is not to learn.” My failure to lose focus for an hour or so anticipating that which never happened was a good reminder of this.
This wasn’t because I was only aware of it after the fact. I remember being aware of it as it happened.
But, instead of reminding myself of the choice, I took the easy path – distraction.
That’s the challenge with learning skills that matter. You take a few steps forward and think you’ve gotten past the difficult part.
That’s about when you find yourself taking a few steps back.
The important thing at this point is to not lose heart. It is normal to move back and forth for long periods of time. Progress isn’t linear. This is especially so with learning skills that matter.
The important thing is to use the experience as a reminder that there’s more work to do.
Then, keep plugging away.
