Last week we talked about how sometimes, it can be easy to look at the struggles of others and assume they should not be having a difficult time. After all, their challenge would be easy for us. But it’s also easy to make the same judgmental mistake when we look at our past selves. We can easily remember a poor decision we’ve made and think “How could I have been so stupid?” We forget that we have certain knowledge now that we didn’t have before.
We simply cannot judge our decisions of yesterday with our knowledge of today. Today we know something we didn’t know then–like, for example, the outcome of the decision! And what? Now we’re going to judge it with experience we didn’t have back then? That’s not fair. The goal isn’t condemnation for the error, it’s the analytical analysis of what lead to the decision: how we made it, why we made it, what were our triggers, and what can we learn from it. In the same way we can’t judge other people’s difficulties or challenges with our experiences, we can’t judge our decisions on what we didn’t know. It debilitates us and distracts us when, as a leader, we most need to keep our head in the game, to keep our wits about us and to focus on the next step. You can never win a game by re-taking a shot that you missed. You only win by maintaining the courage and composure to keep shooting on the goal. Have grace with your past self, and have grace with your team. Wouldn’t you want the same?
