Recently I read a great article about how athletes should have short term memory both about failures and successes. When they fail it's important not to dwell on it, move on, try again, don't let it get you down, it's not what defines you, there's always another race, event, competition....blah blah. And don't dwell on when you succeed either, let it fuel you to continue pushing, but move on, don't sit in the glory days. I had this same conversation with a friend and coach when I needed some advice on how my nerves got the best of me before competitions. "You've got to have short term memory," he says in his Arkansas drawl. I agree with this article and I agree with my friend. But man, is this a hard concept for me to embrace. I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist but I would call my self an EXPECTATIONIST (you will not find this word in wikipedia.) Basically it means if I don't meet my expectations it is a BIG FAIL to me. And my expectations for myself and unfortunately others are a tad too high. So when I don't live up to, sometimes, my over the top expectations I tend to remember and play it back in my mind over and over again.
Races lost, competitions lost by a couple of reps. I think for days, what could I have done differently? What if I had just saved my energy here, or pushed it a bit more here, what-if's start to swirl in my mind, and I play this game for way too long.
But here's the deal - I don't think this concept of short term memory applies only to athletes. I think it applies to us all. It applies to the mom, (this is where I live right now, all covered in toddler and pre-school germs, literally one has a fever and the other has puked on me twice.) The mom who lost it when her toddler threw a tantrum for one hour in the grocery aisle of Target. It applies to entrepreneurs who made a bad business decision and are now in debt, it applies to the dad who got too busy with work and brushed his son off when he tried to talk to him while on the phone. You name it -we all need this concept of having a short term memory. Because let's face it, none of our days are perfect and none of us handle these mishaps with grace all the time, or for me, even some of the time.
My personality is one that tends to replay the tapes over and over. I think, "Oh my goodness, I have ruined my child because he saw me throw away his pre-school picture with the letter G glued in goldfish. (Seriously, what do you moms do with ALL those pictures they bring home everyday?) If you scrapbook them all do not even comment, because it is sure to throw me into the what-if game for years.
So this past week our mindset for KHOP was to have short term memory. None of us want to screw up. I would think that all of us strive to be great spouses, co-workers, parents, friends. But sometimes we just have days we need to forget and move on. Don't dwell on those days of what can seem like a failure. Maybe when your response wasn't so WWJD. Sometimes the best thing we can do is forgive ourselves, ask others we may have hurt to forgive us, and then ask Christ, the giver of all grace, to give us more of Him tomorrow and less of us.