Would you rather go for a walk with a rock in your shoe, or stay at home instead?

Most people would choose to stay at home. It’s more comfortable.

They might also forget that it only takes a moment to remove the rock.

One thing I’ve learned being a parent is that criticizing doesn’t work.

There might be some short term behaviour changes if I criticize, but over the long term progress is usually lost.

Criticism and constructive feedback are very close to each other. In fact, if I drew a Venn diagram they would probably overlap quite substantially.

The thing with young kids is if you try to give them ‘constructive feedback’, it’s just criticism to them. Thus it doesn’t work.

However praising when they do things well, publicly, seems to work.

An example:

My youngest daughter hates washing her hands (how convenient during a pandemic, right?). But rather than nagging her to wash her hands it’s more effective to publicly tell her big sister that it’s great that she washed her hands.

All of the sudden, guess who wants to wash their hands?

When refurbishing something made from wood it’s more efficient to start with a coarse sandpaper, sand the entire project, and then gradually progress to something finer.

You could, in theory, start with the fine sand paper. But progress would be slow. It would be more work than necessary. You might even give up before you finish.

It’s worth applying this methodology to other project’s life.

When starting something new, rough and done is better than polished but incomplete.

My grandpa passed over 10 years ago. I remember it quite well because I was in university at the time.

My grandparents lived in Port Hope, Ontario. Just outside of Toronto.

One time my Mom came back from a visit with them and she brought me a few metal beer mugs that were my Grandpa’s. He wanted me to have them. She said I should call him and thank him. It had been awhile since we had chatted.

I didn’t call him. I’m not sure why.

A few weeks later he passed away.

One of my bigger regrets in life and I’m sharing here for anyone who might need a reminder to call someone they care about.

Telling someone ‘no’ can be hard. Hearing it can de disappointing.

No, we aren’t interested.

Sorry, you’re not a good fit.

We’ve decide to go in a different direction.

All of these are infinitely better than ‘maybe’.

From this viewpoint it’s worth setting up a framework in advance. If we hear ‘maybe’ X amount of times then we should consider it a ‘no’ and move on. Sure, sometimes an unrealistic amount of perseverance will pay off. But this is the exception to the rule.

And watch out for ‘yes but’. These are just ‘maybe’ in disguise.