On a store-front window, “Under New Management!” tells loyal customers to expect things to be different (better? worse?) and implies to strangers that previous attempts failed. Is it really good business to show this?
When applied personally, it’s unambiguous: I’m under new management every day because it simply means that I learned from what happened yesterday. I stole the “under new management” part from Seth Godin’s blog and had to pile on as it perfectly describes what I’m doing these days.
I journal every day, with pen and paper, the old school way (another post, another day, hey, hey). Analog journaling is new to me as of the beginning of the year (2020). I’m eight weeks in and, mostly, loving it. I use the analog journal for self-awareness and self-improvement. It’s where I can be safely vulnerable and keep myself accountable (same reason I blog here, but maybe less vulnerable!).
I need structure and prompts to get the juices flowing. So at the end of every day, I ask myself:
- What bad habit did I curb today?
- How am I better today than I was yesterday?
- Were my actions just? (interactions with and duty to fellow humans, even if only my family)
- How can I improve tomorrow?
Every day I strive to earn that “Under New Management” placard. It’s hard work to be completely honest with myself and admit my failures (temper, apathy, laziness, etc) that contribute to negative (or best case, neutral) outcomes. If I lose my daily practice of deep introspection, I get stuck in a rut.
That said, there are days when I just write “fuck you, I had a bad day”. No reflection and no introspection and nothing deep. On those days, at best, I’m standing still. At worst, I’m taking backward steps into old, bad and unhealthy habits.
But tomorrow is always a new day and, thankfully, those down days are in the minority. I strive on the good days to make at least one baby step toward learning and improving. It’s a constant cycle. It’s often as simple as “I lost patience with my teenage son when he stuck his phone in my face. Tomorrow I will practice (extreme) patience and gratitude (that he still wants to even be near me).”
And, thusly, I remind myself:
Tomorrow, I will make better mistakes.