“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

 John Wooden

Whenever I find myself (or more accurately, my wife and kids find me), irritable and short-fused, I can almost always trace it back to knowing I didn’t do my best at something.  I’m irritated with myself, but it usually bleeds over into the surrounding area(s)….collateral damage, so to speak.  For the longest time, when my family would ask what was wrong with me, I would honestly answer that I didn’t know.

Earlier, I wrote about my ongoing journey to know myself, my strengths and weaknesses.  I still don’t know if this is a strength or a weakness, but I’ve learned enough about myself to begin to understand the root cause of the short-fuse.  As my oldest son used to say when he was a toddler, “It’s my fault!”

When I find myself getting really torqued at the world, I now know to stop and look at my recent past performance.  It doesn’t take too long to pinpoint the culprit.  It usually involves laziness or complacency in my efforts to achieve one of my goals.  I tried to be a nicer person by simply removing having any goals, and therefore removing the pressure to perform….that made matters even worse.   As Coach Wooden stated above, peace of mind is directly related to one’s best efforts.

Once I know, deep down, that I have done all that I possibly can, I stand confidently, I have done my very best.  Win, lose, or draw, I am at peace, knowing full well my efforts were worthy of my own respect.  Win, lose, or draw, I’m still going to do an after action report to assess what I could have done better, and lessons learned, but at least I can respect myself.

If you find yourself on the short-fused end of things, a good place to check under the hood is your level of effort moving toward your goals.  (If you have no goals, direct your best efforts in coming up with some.)

Boo Yah!