Dealing with Failure
By Susie Black - get free updates of new articles here
(No 6 in a series of 6)
Facing failure
There are some people who believe that modern medicine will progress so quickly that, by the time they make themselves ill through their own poor lifestyle choices, an effective treatment will already have been found. It’s more realistic, however, that this poor treatment of their bodies will revisit them in later life with painful, time-consuming and over-medicalised consequences.
This knowledge adds pressure on all of us to make healthcare our daily responsibility. It is inevitable that sometimes we will get it wrong, that we will make poor choices and that we will harm ourselves. None of this matters in the long term. No previous binge, sofa day, boozy fortnight in Magaluf or 50-hour-a-week desk job is relevant when it comes to improving your health. Only the steps that you take from here are relevant.
The ability to bounce back from failure, to become informed by failure, to accept and forgive your own failure is key to developing the tools required to achieve your long-term health change.
So, what do you do if your careful evaluation shows that you’ve failed entirely at your desired goal? When it comes to our health, failure is only another tool. When hope is fading fast and you doubt you’ll ever succeed, there are still steps you can take. Here is one quick and easy way to drag you back out of the bottomless pit of helplessness and into affirmative action.
The 5 Whys
This is actually a method of problem solving invented by Sakichi Toyoda in the 1930s. He was an industrialist, inventor and the founder of Toyota Industries. His technique became popular in the 1970s and Toyota still uses it to solve problems today.
We’re going to look at how we can use it to break the deadlock of failure while increasing our understanding of how best to succeed in the future. The theory is that when you encounter a problem you ask why, why, why, why, why?
Here’s a famous industrial example for when a machine stopped working in the Toyota factory:
Why did the machine stop?
The overload tripped out.
Why did the overload trip?
There was not enough oil on the machine shaft.
Why was there not enough oil?
The oil pump was inefficient.
Why was the oil pump inefficient?
The pump drive shaft was worn.
Why was the pump drive shaft worn?
The oil filter was blocked and rubbing on the drive shaft.
Resetting the overload trip wouldn’t have helped, nor oiling the shaft, replacing the pump or its drive shaft. The oil filter would still have blocked again and the problem would have recurred. We don’t need to be technical geniuses to translate this to our world.
Here’s a silly, but perhaps more relevant, example using 2 students called Charlie and Cameron. Charlie is trying to lose weight.
Charlie eats a cream éclair.
Why did Charlie eat the éclair?
He was hungry.
Why was he hungry?
He didn’t have breakfast.
Why didn’t he eat breakfast?
There was no milk for his cereal.
Why was there no milk?
Cameron had finished it.
We didn’t need to get all the way to 5 to find the problem. The solution here is clearly to throttle Cameron, or perhaps for Charlie to hide his milk. Charlie could also lighten up and have some toast in the morning, prepare meals the night before or have a stack of better-quality goodies to snack on in the future.
The point is that seeking the root cause of a disaster is key to making long-term change. Charlie clearly needs to plan better to avoid temptation. Evaluation and planning take the sting out of failure and feedback informs our future attempts. Here's a little proforma to work through for when things go wrong at home.
This is a simple and facetious example and I recommend you take a moment to think through a real life situation you have experienced in the past and run it through the system. It's not rocket science, just a quick way to find accountability so you can get on with the important parts of your day.
Thank you for joining me over the last six weeks
We started with the concept that eating well and moving appropriately could help manage the majority of the health concerns of women in their 40's and 50's. Over this period we've looked at:
Easy Healthy changes
General Food Advice
The reasons why I eat
Menu options for eating out
The Mindset of Weight Management
Managing Failure
Our hopes for this series
I wanted to show you where your blind spots with food are and give you quick and easy suggestions to work around them. I hoped I could help you understand your relationship with food better so you can take more responsibility for what goes on your plate and have more confidence in your ability to effectively manage a longer-term weight loss plan.
If we've just scratched the surface and you're eager to continue with my help then please hit reply and let me know. Good Luck!
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