We each have many default settings. Do yours help or hinder you?

Do you have positive default settings? Such as it’s 7 am and you hear your alarm go off. You get up straight away.

Or do you have negative default settings? Such as it’s 7am and you hear your alarm go off. You turn the alarm off and stay in bed.

Examine your defaults and you’ll find both positive and negative.

When we want to become better we seek to put new habits, new defaults, in place.

This is day two hundred of posting on this blog.

We need heroes. People to look up to. People to show us the way.

Heroes can be anybody. Find them among athletes. Or authors. Or scientists. Or neighbours. Or family. Or…

Find them and learn from them.

Amazing performances, gold medals, and world records. These are the reasons I enjoy watching the Olympics every four years. I’m not much for watching sports but the Olympics, and indeed the Paralypics, are one of very few exceptions.

But this time around I’ve not enjoyed everything as much as I usually do. This time when there’s a big performance from someone I question it. It’s not a complicated question that I end up asking but it comes to mind more often than not. Especially if a world record gets broken. “Is this person doping?”

Last night I watched South African, Wayde Van Niekerk, win the men’s 400 metres and claim a new world record. It looked really impressive. But that question jumped into my head – “Is he doping?”. Then I hoped he wasn’t.

There is no reason to suggest Wayde Van Niekerk is doping. That the thought formed at all is nothing to do with Van Niekerk himself. Instead it’s entirely to do with the number of others who have been caught.

And not just caught but barely punished and then allowed to return to the sport. Justin Gatlin, won silver in the men’s 100 metres race last night. He has previously served two separate bans for doping violations. That he is ever allowed to compete again following the first violation, without even considering the second, is ridiculous.

I want records to continue to be broken. Legitimately. I want to return to athletes blowing us away with their achievements. For that to happen doping must be dealt with. And not in the half-arsed way it is dealt with today. If you get caught you’re done. We only want real athletes.

You made a plan and followed it. Or at least tried to. But you didn’t get the result you wanted. So, what now?

Go back to the plan. Reevaluate it. Break it apart. Look at each step in isolation. Look at it as a whole. What new information did you gather while following the plan? What assumptions did you make that turned out to be false? Where did you have difficulties following it?

Only once you’ve reevaluated the plan can you decide if the plan can be saved. Should you scrap the plan? Should you rerun the plan as is? Or, can you adjust the plan to make it work?

There’s a lot to be learned from failure. So learn.