The solution can be simple (unless there are major other factors such as clinical depression). Just do it badly.

Let me give an example. Currently I’m writing the novelette file-named Ted. It’ll be about 30,000 words. Some days I just feel I’ve no idea what to write next, and anyway if I did write it would be rubbish. I’ve managed to get myself into a routine which solves the problem, based on the mantra: it doesn’t matter how bad it is. The policy is to write at least 500 words a day, six days a week. At that rate it’ll take 60 days, which is 10 weeks (with one day to recover each week). And I’m just writing, not editing, not rereading, not worrying how good it is just so long as I finish. Then I can think about improving it. No matter how good it is I’ll be able to improve it.

And it’s working. In the last five days I’ve written the following numbers of words (compared with target 500): 753, 844, day off, 535, 1315. Yesterday was weak. Really ill the night before, felt rough. Managed to get up to watch some early-evening TV, and decided to tap away at the notebook while watching. No idea if it’s any good, but I got the 500 done.

This method links in with what I said about brainstorming here, and about just starting, here.

Ted A 004a.docx is now 8172 words.

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Despite losing my original notes I’ve managed to come up with a list of nine Ps which pretty much cover it:

• Possible,
• Personal,
• Pragmatic,
• Passionate,
• Present tense,
• Positive,
• Precise,
• Posted,
• Process.

Usually this sort of list annoys me as artificial, but it’ll do.

Possible

Assess anything you’re considering making a personal goal. If you really go for it, how likely are you to succeed? As a very loose guideline, if your answer is under 50% then pick a more reasonable goal (which may ultimately serve as a stepping stone to making your original choice feasible).

It’s worth taking into account your talents, level of education, physical and mental health, support systems (eg friends), interests, motivation, and age. I’m not good at learning raw facts, which is one reason I found foreign languages so tough at school. Now I’m older it’s even harder to memorise stuff. It would be really nice to speak fluent French, but setting myself the target of learning French to that level would be silly. Instead I take a phrase book, dictionary, and the remnants of what I learned at school.

Frankland's Green Crack, Almscliffe Crag, just coming up to the tricky bit. In my 30s I was running most days and using weights, and still had trouble on this route. Now I'm 60 it would be absurd to set myself the target of leading that route again. I'll stick with the easier stuff.

Personal

Aim for things you want to achieve. As a teacher I was often tempted to try imposing targets that students didn’t want. I might know that some aspects of life are easier if you get a good grade in Maths, but not everyone shares my personal aspirations and interests. If your Dad is a successful businessman who is hoping you’ll one day take over, and if you don’t like Maths, then maybe you don’t need to get to University to achieve your main goal of becoming able to run the business well. On the other hand, if Dad is determined you will take over but the very idea makes you slightly sick….

Targets you set for yourself are likely to be far more powerful than targets someone else sets for you.

Pragmatic

We’re all different. Take your uniqueness into account. Any goals you set need to match with who you are and what you hold important.

I once heard of someone who came up with a way to become a millionaire in a year if he did the right work, and he was correct that most millionaires only became so rich by making themselves very focussed on that goal. He set himself the target and set about achieving it.  This required he spend most of his time on the road. He hardly ever saw his wife and children, and when he did he was tired from travel and hard work. Occasionally he’d take one of his children with him for a week or two, but he was out of touch with family life and too focussed on his work. While they were with him he let them eat far too much junk food, which led to arguments with his wife. At the end of the year he had achieved his target. He was a millionaire. But he had lost his wife and family.

Okay, so maybe he was at ease with that result. I wouldn’t be. The process of achieving that kind of goal would not fit with my personal values. It would risk destroying things I hold dear.

That overlaps with this consideration. We need to check that the end result is really what we want and that it fits with who we really are.

Brian Jones was a founder-member of The Rolling Stones. He was with the band through its first six years of success, but according to Mick Jagger could not handle fame and the lifestyle that went with it. In 1968 he left the band with the hope he might be able to return, but died the next year in odd circumstances. Fame is not for everyone, nor is the life of a rock star.

Passionate

What will achieving the goal require you to do? Have you the enthusiasm to do this? If you fancy being a world-famous concert pianist you’re looking at many years of practising at least five hours a day. Does your passion extend that far? Mine wouldn’t. I wanted to relearn the guitar when I retired, but frankly I was never much good at playing it, and these days my enthusiasm no way matches the need to play every day. I dumped that as a target with sadness, but felt more at ease having done so.

Present tense

Goals are best phrased in the present tense, as if they are already achieved.

Apparently a boxing manager spotted someone called Cassius Clay who was showing great promise as a boxer. He asked Clay what his ambition was. “I’d really like to become heavyweight champion of the world.” No, said the manager, with that attitude you’ll never make it. Stop saying “I’d like to become…” and start saying “I am the greatest in the world”.

After Whoopi Goldberg was awarded an Oscar she said that for most of her career she’d been imagining herself accepting the award and holding it to herself with joy.

Visualise yourself already having achieved your target. Feel what it will feel like. Think of yourself as already being that person. (Of course I’m assuming you’ve checked your goal is Possible!)

Positive

Cassius Clay was also making another common mistake. He phrased his ambition in slightly negative terms, which gave him a getout. The manager advised him this was a realistic target, but not an easy one. To achieve it he must remove the “like to” bit.

If becoming fluent with French was a sensible target for me then I should phrase it something like this: “I am becoming fluent in French. I have the ability. I have the desire. I am succeeding.”

Precise

Clay did not aim to become a good boxer. He aimed to be heavyweight world champion. He succeeded. He was also voted sports personality of the century.

Be clear exactly what you’re aiming to achieve.

How will you know when you have arrived?

One of my current targets is to have a book I’ve written published by an established publishing house. That’s clear. I’ll know for certain when I’ve achieved it. I think it is possible, but I’m being realistic by not aiming (yet) for a best seller. Joanne Harris’ agent did place her first novel. It wasn’t all that successful – none of the local book stores stocked it. Her next was slightly more successful. The next two were not published until after her best seller Chocolat. I don’t know if she was aiming for the level of success she achieved. Must ask her. I’m at ease with my current target.

Posted

We need motivation to achieve a target. One source is feedback about our progress, and the more frequent the better.  Identify stages along the way, sub-goals you can check off as they are achieved. How can you tell if today you are doing stuff which moves you onwards?

Process

Don’t be conned. Life is about living, not sitting still. Make sure you know what will come after you achieve a target. Enjoy every part of working towards it. Be on a continuing journey in which every scene is valued.

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Life is an infinite flight of stairs that has to be fought up, and I know I can't even manage the first step.

So I wake up wanting to lie there for the rest of existence. Something to dull my senses would be good. When hedgehogs feel like this they hibernate.

 But I’m not a hedgehog. I have to take responsibility for part of my recovery. I need to train myself to do stuff even when the world is just blurred shades of grey and I know I can never feel pleasure again. Why? Some answers are here, posted two days ago.

Okay, I need to make a start on my own recovery. I want to have a life once more. How do I set about it? Here are some thoughts based on decades of study and experimentation:

Be clear what the problem is

I am ill. There is a chemical imbalance in my brain that is making me feel like this and is twisting my thinking. It’s not my fault I feel like this, any more than it’s my fault when I catch a cold. But I can fight it. The fight may be long and hard, but there will be better times along the way. If I’m not being treated by a psychiatrist then I need to seek medical advice. If I’m on an anti-depressant I may need to be patient, or it may be the wrong medicine, or I might need a higher dose for a while – so I may need to return to the Doctor. Once the chemical problem is a bit less crippling I might well find some form of counselling helpful.

But given all of that, I am living TODAY, and I have the ability to at least make a start. I can make one step towards my own recovery right now. My brain is for the while a bit damaged and tells me I can’t, but it lies. I can.

Start tiny, think small

I’m not out to run a marathon, just to make one faltering step and then rest. The thought of going through all the rigmarole of getting dressed is overwhelming, so forget that. Maybe I could run some warm water and rinse my face with a flannel. This usually makes me feel a tiny bit less rough, but if not that doesn’t matter because I have achieved something.

I enjoy coffee. How about I make myself a cup and then drink it while I rest.

Start from where I am

If I’m still lying in bed with the light off maybe I could simply sit up, maybe turn on the light. If I’m moping in a badly lit room I could get up and turn on the light. If I’m up and have had breakfast but still feel useless then for me opening this blog and starting to write is a good next step. Telling myself to go for a half hour walk is not. I may be up to that later, but not yet.

Break things down into the smallest parts

As a teacher I used to set out everything that would be needed to start marking a pile of books. I’d get it ready for someone else so all they had to do was sit down at the table, pick up a pen, and they were off. I wasn’t going to actually mark those books, just get them ready.

Some mornings I can’t face getting dressed so I tell myself all I need to do is clean my teeth. If that is too much and I can’t move then how about filling the glass with water and rinsing my mouth? Still too much? Go to the bathroom and move the glass from its hiding place behind the curtain to where I’ll see it next time I’m there. Some days it takes me four separate goes to get dressed: put clothes out for the day (rest), clean teeth, (rest), shave (rest), shower and dress (rest). And then I almost always can cope with a bit of real life.

Failure happens, move on

There are days, not often now but they happen, when I not only don’t get dressed but don’t even clean my teeth. Not good, but it happens. Okay, so that was a bad day. I’m going to make today better. My challenge, should I choose to accept it: at least run the electric toothbrush over my teeth and rinse. Ideally include tooth paste. But the key is to accept bad days as part of the illness and move on. If I fail it’s the illness. If I succeed it’s me. A day back is bad brain chemistry. A day forwards is an achievement.

If you feel the slightest bit better once you start, keep going

 Have you ever helped push a stalled car that needs to be bump started? The hard bit is getting it going. Once it’s on the move keeping it moving, and even speeding up, is easier. Depression is usually just the same. Once I’ve made the first move I can often cope with the one after that. If I’ve set myself the challenge of cleaning my teeth, nothing else, but once that’s done I feel up to it I just keep going and shave, and the logical next step is to shower and maybe even wash my hair. If I make it to fully dressed I’m usually okay to get some more stuff done, to have a life.

Don’t be fooled by how your brain says you feel

I don’t like it when the sun doesn’t shine, but I work hard at not worrying about it.

Telling myself I’ve taken the first step may not feel like anything, but it is having an effect. Recent research suggested that although patients do not realise an antidepresssant is helping them for anything up to six weeks it is actually having some effect from the first day (easy article here, more technical stuff here).

A depressed brain distorts everything. It's just a normal flight of stairs, with a beginning and an end. The sun isn't shining, yet, but all I need to do is put one foot on the first step, move slightly, and sit on the next step for a rest. I can do that.

I remember clearly the summer of 1971 when I was severely depressed and there was no antidepressant that helped. I’d been depressed for nearly a year and it wasn’t letting up at all. Nothing was pleasurable. I was living with my parents at their retirement bungalow in Sidmouth, Devon. A college friend invited me over for the day. He lived in Paignton. The journey required I catch a bus to Exeter and then train the rest of the way. Pretty easy for normal people, but a mountain to climb then. I made it. He met me at the station and spent the whole day arranging activities that I might enjoy. I can still feel the overpowering sense of gloom that I knew I should be having a good time, but wasn’t. Every single thing we did was for me just going through the motions. On the way home I sat on the sunny side of the railway carriage staring blankly at scenery that my intellect said was beautifil, but it left me cold. I just wanted to cry.

BUT at some level I couldn’t sense that day out helped me towards recovery. Cheers Steve. I felt no pleasure. Every activity was tedious. But it was the most active day I’d had since becoming depressed the previous November. I was moving on. I was building in the habit of doing stuff no matter how I felt. As a teacher I must have often been pretty bad when depressed, but I know there were black days when somehow my professionalism kicked in and I gave some good lessons. I didn’t need to FEEL happier as a result because I had made progress. Not much, but a bit.

Recognise when to rest

Yes, sometimes I’ve pushed myself and collapsed. Let’s consider that in the next post.

As the last two articles, this is the first draft, raw and unedited. Hope it helps someone.

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Wander at random or choose a direction?

This was a search question which brought someone here recently. It needs answering.

The obvious answer is that having clear goals helps us focus on what most needs our attention today if we are to make progress. Done right it will also boost motivation. Properly implemented it will guide how we set about some tasks, and how we prioritise. But there’s more to it than that. Sadly.

Who sets the target?

The targets we set for ourselves are likely to be far more effective than those imposed on us, especially if there is no consultation. This is partly because internal motivation is more powerful than external (see here), and partly because effective goals are personal and match the person involved. You need to have ownership of your goals. They need to fit who you are.

The trouble is other people may have so poor an understanding of how goals work that they set them for you badly or for the wrong reasons.

What is it intended to achieve?

Our UK government sets targets for people because it thinks this is a good idea, and I guess because it thinks this makes them look more dynamic. I sometimes wonder what the individuals responsible think they’re doing. Government targets often seem to have been set by rolling dice, and too often include no plan for how to achieve them.

A friend’s son enjoys running pubs, and soon had one brewery’s targets system figured out. He would take over a failing pub and in the first year reach his imposed sales targets easily. The targets were then raised. Presumably their purpose is to motivate, but without costing the brewery too much. The second year he would reach the harder targets. Then he would move on because targets for the third year would be unreasonable. He could put in a lot of extra work and skill and yet still not get his bonus. His employer wants to motivate by offering a reward for good work. That’s sensible. Unfortunately it misunderstands the psychology of effective targets.

And then there’s the target which is proudly set to impress people and postpone the nagging. Again our government here in the UK, and I suspect all governments, are experienced. “You want this done?” they say to us, “You’re right, it must become a high priority. We will make sure it is sorted by [randomly selected future year]. Aren’t we great!” Trouble is  they then shove their target off on other people who may have neither the skills nor the resources to achieve it. Come [randomly selected future year] the media point out that the target is not met, so a later date is set. It seems that rarely do politicians setting targets follow through by ensuring the right people have the right resources and a workable plan to follow through on the promise.

The best targets are set by ourselves because there is something worthwhile we can achieve if we really put our mind to it.

This article is #9 in the effective goal-setting series. The first in the series is here.

Yes, of course the photo was taken on the North York Moors.

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Some things we do because we're told to, some because we want to.

I taught in secondary (high) schools for over thirty years. In that time I was sometimes well and enthusiasm came easily, but often I was mildly or seriously depressed. I was lucky. The first time a school applied any serious pressure was a couple of months before I put in for ill-health early retirement, and in that case the pressure needed to be applied. I was no longer capable of fulfilling my duties as a teacher because of worsening depression.

Most of my career I was able to motivate myself to work as hard at the job as my illness would allow. I enjoy teaching (though not marking, writing reports, supervising, etc). I believe strongly in the importance of having good teachers. I care about people and find almost everybody interesting. The challenge of trying to figure out how to communicate Maths in an effective way is stimulating. It was a privilege to be allowed to help youngsters grow as people, and move towards being effective and fulfilled members of society.

All of this motivation was coming from inside me, and all of it was directed towards things I wished to achieve (see previous post). When things got really tough I was able to add some ‘away-from’ motivation by becoming scared of what would happen if I lost my job, but that also came from within me.

Things I’ve found hardest are stuff like filling in tax returns and marking exams (which become seriously tedious after the first fifty scripts). These were not things I wanted to do. In fact when depressed I’d find them almost unbearably painful even once started. This was stuff that ‘they’ were telling me I had to do. And ‘they’ were giving me a deadline - which was necessary to make me do it but felt unpleasant, like being punished.

There are two possible sources for motivation: from within (internal) and from someone else (external). Guess which one is the most pleasant.

No, actually you don’t need to guess. You’ve experienced both. Internal motivation not only feels better, but is highly effective.

External motivation, someone else telling us to achieve something for reasons they have created, is typically unpleasant. It antagonises us and can easily sap energy and enthusiasm. It can cause us to lose sight of what matters to us about the job. It can and often does have undesirable side-effects. Sometimes it is necessary, as in requiring a teacher to have a set of school exams marked on time, but sometimes it is not. For other examples see this earlier post.

If you need to motivate someone else you have quite a lot of thinking to do first, and it would be great if you consulted the people you need to motivate.

Any fool can use threats to motivate people badly. It takes knowledge and effort to motivate them well.

Nobody likes a boss but the whole world is screaming out for good leaders.

This article is #8 in the effective goal-setting series. The first in the series is here.

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Donkeys are likely to move towards a carrot and away from a stick.

Think back through some of the times someone has tried to motivate you.

Did they focus your attention on something good to move towards, or did they warn you of something bad to move away from?

At the moment I’m moderately depressed. I motivate myself to write by reminding myself I’ll feel somewhat better once I get started, and be continuing to develop my skills as a writer. Usually that works.

Recently I wanted to buy large quantities of chocolate and ice cream but focussed on healthier options by reminding myself I want to lose weight and be healthy, and that junk food may worsen depression in the long term. Doesn’t always work, but did this week.

Teachers often use the offer of approval (a ‘carrot’) and the warning of disapproval (a ‘stick’, to continue the riding a donkey analogy) to try to motivate their students.

Usually motivation towards something we want is far more powerful than motivation to avoid something. I remember a fellow student when I was at school in the 60s who decided not to attend a two-hour Saturday detention. I guess the attraction of a chilled Saturday now was greater than the fear of being severely caned on Monday. It might even have been so if he’d known that on the Monday he’d not only be caned but also given another detention for the following Saturday.

That throws up another crucial factor: how soon is the payoff? When I was young and in a hurry driving across country I very nearly caused a major accident overtaking in the wrong place. This made the possibility of serious injury or death so close it completely overpowered my desire to drive fast and get home soon. For the guy at my school ‘now’ was much closer than ‘next Monday’, although I’m sure he felt differently on his way to school after the weekend.

We’ll pick these strands up soon when we examine how to set goals that are effective.

This article is #7 in the effective goal-setting series. The first in the series is here.

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"Shut up. Please just shut up! I know I keep failing. I feel bad enough already. Soon I won't care if I never improve."

On Pink Floyd’s The Wall there’s a take-off teacher shouting “Wrong, do it again. Wrong, do it again. Wrong….”. Well thank you, bad teacher.

Maybe he leant over your shoulder, gouged a big red cross into the page, and barked into your ear. Or he could have flung your exercise book at you a month after you handed the work in. In the first case at least the feedback is quick. In the second it has no redeeming features.

There’s a psychological state called flow in which we achieve a great deal. Time slows down dramatically. Your focus is a laser beam of intensity. You live from instant to instant with barely any thought of past or future. You never want to stop. Someone calls you to a meal and you don’t even answer. You’re in the flow.

Surgeon’s get it when operating. Sometimes I get it when writing. The best computer games are designed to cause it. Something that is key to achieving it is good feedback. Next time you find yourself in this state just become aware of what kinds of feedback you’re getting.

Here are some key factors:

Good feedback is prompt

Ever been staying away from home and had trouble getting the shower temperature right? It’s too cold, so you turn it up. Nothing happens so you turn it up more. Suddenly it’s scalding so you wham it back down. By now you’re getting annoyed.

Imagine having a guitar or driving lesson. The instructor spends half an hour just telling you what to do next, but fails to tell you which bits were good or bad till the very end. Then he says, “Okay, about two minutes in you did this, which was bad.” Well thank you. That was timely.

When you’re learning new stuff try to get feedback on how good it is, what’s working and what needs modifying, as soon as possible. It’s more helpful when it’s quick. It’s more encouraging.

And if you’re a teacher, a key part of your role is encouragement.

Good feedback is accurate

 Imagine a computer game that kept indicating you were doing really well, and then suddenly announced you’d failed. Not a game anyone would play twice.

As a writer I have difficulty obtaining genuine feedback. People don’t like to criticise. Trouble is if I don’t find out what’s wrong with my writing I can’t improve.

If you’re learning a skill such as high-jumping you need a good coach to observe you in practice, someone who will accurately identify what you’re getting right and what needs to be modified.

Good feedback is genuine

Some parents and teachers are forever complimenting their charges irrespective of how well something has been done. I’m sorry, but if I’ve done something well below what I’m capable of I do not want you saying, “Well done, that was fantastic. You’re doing really well.” I’d rather you said nothing till it improves. This doesn’t rule out saying, “That was good. Now here’s something you could try to make it even better.” Of course the younger someone is the more compliments they need for each piece of constructive criticism.

Everyone does some things well. No matter who you are dealing with, look for something you can genuinely compliment them on and you’ll find it. Genuine praise can be extraordinarily powerful, especially if it is unexpected. It shows you respect and care for the other person as a unique individual of value.

Good feedback is clear

I used to get students to write an assessment of their own performance in Maths, and at the end they were invited to comment on my teaching. The instructions went something like this: “You’re not allowed to write that my teaching is bad. You are very welcome to say that my teaching is bad because… and then tell me what it is I need to do to improve.”

Playing a chord on the guitar often requires that only some of the six strings be played. If you hit a wrong string the result is a dischord. When learning you need more than just hearing you’ve played the chord badly. You need to know which string you played by mistake.

Good feedback is reasonably frequent

Playing computer games, operating as a surgeon and climbing rock faces involve almost non-stop feedback. That’s one reason the activities can be so gripping.

People often feel nervous trying questions on a new Maths topic. They’re scared of being wrong. Fortunately text books for older students include answers at the back. I used to encourage students to check each homework answer as soon as they completed it. “Keep a bookmark in the answers page.” I’d also suggest that if they were getting a particular type of question wrong and couldn’t figure out what their error they should write this down and stop. Then they could have another go once someone had identified the problem for them. “I would rather you spent the whole time getting one question right than doing them all wrong. Please do not practise working incorrectly unless that’s what you want to become better at!” Even so many would still finish the exercise before checking anything.

Good feedback is constructive

 We need to identify our mistakes if we are to make progress. What we need like an extra hole in the head is someone just being critical. What I want to hear is how to improve. People I give feedback to need the same. Criticism without guidance how to move forwards rapidly becomes depressing; soon you give up altogether.

Good feedback praises the good as well as identifying the bad

We need balance. Feedback which is only ever constructively critical soon wears thin. We’re all human. We also need to be complimented on the good stuff.

In the early stages of learning something new it’s wise to focus on what is good, and from the bad pick just one item to improve. Take pleasure in how that improves, and in what is already good. Chill about other stuff till you’re ready.

Good feedback is unpredictable and becomes less frequent

The technical term for this aspect of feedback is positive reinforcement. One reason national lotteries are so addictive is that they offer infrequent, unpredictable, small prizes. Perhaps you win £10, and then a few months later win another £20. No matter you’ve gambled several hundred pounds, the positive feedback is powerful. If you won something every week, or knew you’d win once a month, motivation would drop.

Some of the above helps when seeking feedback. All of it can improve how we give feedback if you want it to.

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This article is #6 in the effective goal-setting series.

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Uses for a Maths teacher # 4 : to enable deep and restful sleep

I used to have a poster on the wall of my teaching room. In the cartoon above Miriam shortened it to just three words. We’ll leave circles don’t exist for another time and place. How about make more mistakes?

Think of something you’d like to get better at. Maybe its one of these: playing guitar, acting, running, oil painting, writing, chatting in French, using Maths, feeling relaxed socially….

Let’s use writing as an example. Writers write. To get better at writing you have to write. That’s one reason for this blog. Some articles are good (I hope), some okay, and some pathetic. Working at something will always produce mistakes. Some of the output will be poor, perhaps embarrassingly bad. And that’s not just inevitable, it’s fine. Provided you can handle failure as part of the scenery on the route to success. I look back at some of the newspaper articles I wrote in the 70s and cringe. How did they ever get published?

You want to paint. Actually you want to be a great painter. You want people to gaze at your latest work in awe and offer you incredible sums of money for it. To be honest you want your very first painting to be like that, but it won’t be. You just don’t have the knowledge or skill yet. And as you progress there will always be new things to learn, and they need to be learned by doing. To learn how to paint well you have to produce imperfect paintings.

As well as music by The Kaiser Chiefs, Ian Hunter and Jaco Pastorius I also listen to Beethoven. He’s considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time. Some of his work is incredible, some fairly run-of-the- mill. Sometimes he would put off composing anything new for ages, and only finally get down to work because he’d already received and spent what he was being paid to write it. And the person paying was getting kinda naggy. My guess is he was scared his next attempt would be a failure. What he needed was to stop fussing and just get started. Some of what he first wrote down will have been bad. It will have been junked and rewritten. If he hadn’t written the bad version first he’d never have got to the great stuff we know today.

I aim to publish something new here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This week Monday became Tuesday for the previous post, and I’m struggling with this Wednesday article on Thursday. I’ve been putting off writing it. What’s in my head doesn’t feel right. I can’t decide how much – or how little – to say. Do I split stuff across several posts? Which examples do I use? What order should it all be in? As I write this I’m solving the problem by just writing. Then I’ll print out this first draft, take a break, review and edit it, maybe throw the whole thing away and start again from scratch. (Actually I’ve kept most of it on the basis that I’m tired and second best is often good enough.)

In the previous post we looked at Thomas Edison’s attitude to failure, and how it brought success. When inventing the light bulb he figured out an approach that might work and tried it. Thousands of times he identified unhelpful approaches. Most people would say he failed repeatedly, but he kept going till he had the result he wanted.

One reason so many people think they can’t do Maths is that when the first approach they try using to solve a problem fails turns out to be unproductive they give up.

Most of us never get the level of success we could achieve because we are too easily discouraged by what we call ‘failure’. If only we could see this kind of failure as necessary. To succeed we have to fail often.

Of course there are provisos. Watch this space. In the meantime, provided you’re not my Doctor, make more mistakes.

This article is # 5 in the effective goal-setting series. The cartoon is copyright (c) Miriam Slechta 2009.

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This is how Edison's carbon impregnated filament ended up

By the mid 1870s A number of people had patented ways to make a light bulb. The trouble was that their inventions either burnt out very quickly, or were way to expensive. Edison saw an opportunity, bought up a number of the patents, and set to work. He did a lot of hard thinking, and based on that he did a lot of hard working.

During this process a reporter came to see Edison.

“Mr Edison, you’ve tried many thousand times to make a working light bulb, but every single time you have failed. Why are you wasting your time? Why don’t you move on to something you can succeed at?”

“Young man,” responded Edison, “you don’t understand how the world works. I haven’t failed several thousand times. I have successfully identified thousands of combinations that don’t work. I am now thousands of experiments closer to success.”

No matter how much thinking he did first, the experiments were necessary.

The basic idea for a light bulb: pass electricity through something fairly thin so that it becomes white hot.

That’s the principle, but as with most great ideas there were significant obstacles to making even one item that was good enough for regular use, and further problems making the things in large numbers.

Here are the basic hitches:

• If you make something white hot in normal air it tends to burn. Solution: put it inside a glass bubble filled with some gas like Nitrogen which is not particularly keen to react with other stuff even at white heat. That’s one of the three functions of the glass part of a bulb.
• Heating an ordinary piece of wire till it glows takes a lot of energy. The thinner you make the wire the less electricity is needed. So go for something really thin. Edison called it a filament.
• But filaments are easy to break, especially at high temperatures. The slightest vibration could blow the bulb. Aha, so why not find the right material to glow when a current passes through, and impregnate it into a filament made of something stronger. He identified carbon as probably the best material to glow.
• So what do you make the filament of? How thick should it be? How long? Do curves matter? How do you connect the ends to a power supply? How much carbon do you impregnate the filament with? What voltage works best? What happens when the voltage varies, as it will?
• And looking at things from a different angle: how long does the filament last? How many times can you turn it on and off? How much does it cost per hour to run? What changes are needed to have something you can manufacture in large quantities at an acceptable price? Will the light bulbs cope with being transported long distances from factory to where they will be used?

Get the picture?

Edison didn’t come up with the basic ideas for how to make a decent light bulb. He was the guy who did all the hard work needed to develop the idea and turn it into something that worked. He had an attitude to failure that repeatedly took him through to success.

 Here’s how the man himself expressed it:

I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem. … I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. (as quoted in “Talks with Edison” by George Parsons Lathrop in Harpers magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890), p. 425)

Many more statements attributed to Edison are available on Wikiquote here.

If you want to search for more info on the net don’t make my first mistake. There is only one d in Edison.

This article is # 4 in the effective goal-setting series. 

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We called him ‘Kim’ after Kipling’s character. His surname was ‘Warwick’ but I cannot remember his real first name.

He worked as a clerk in a bank, and took pleasure and pride in his work. Why was he never promoted? I don’t know. He may not have wanted promotion. Maybe he cared too much about people. Perhaps it was the reddish scarring blotched across much of his face. Those of us who knew him no longer noticed the scars, just the warm human being. As a family man he owned an unremarkable semi-detached house on the cheaper side of our Bristol suburb.

I first met him when I joined the Cubs – now called Cub Scouts. There was a waiting list. Mum had put my name down years earlier. Then, shortly before I was old enough, there was a programme on TV about Cubs and she rigged things so I watched it. Naturally I got excited and asked if I could be a Cub. It was to be a major part of forming who I am now, and it was to introduce me to Kim who was Group Scout Leader but very much involved in working where needed with Cubs and Scouts; it was a long time before I cottoned on that he was in overall charge. He was just there when needed, happy to do any kind of job, and he was one of the few adults we felt at ease chatting with.

He once described how the father of a Scout had rung up and asked if he would talk to the son who was getting out of control at home. Father brought the son round to Kim’s home and asked if he could sit in “to find out how you do it”. He was not allowed to, and it’s sad he didn’t realise that his presence would distort the chat. Kim didn’t talk at us, he listened and we would chat as equals.

We just soaked in the rays of the setting sun, at peace, friends, maybe chatting

One of my fondest memories of growing up was when I was a Patrol Leader at our Whitsun weekend camp somewhere just outside Bristol. We were a small troop, which reduced the range of activities on offer but I think made the experience more enjoyable. There were just three patrols. Our tents were perched along the top of a gentle stream valley. That evening I think we’d had a camp fire, quite a small one, built from dead branches found nearby and chopped to size. Part of Scouting in those days was learning how to use a hand-axe effectively and safely. The fire heated up a dixie of milk which later provided cocoa as we sang our favourite songs, stuff like “Oh you’ll never get to heaven with a fat girl guide” and “Have you ever been to Wales where they brew the finest ales”.

Later the younger Scouts headed off to bed and we patrol leaders stayed sitting on the ground round the fire with Kim watching the sun set. We will have chatted but I don’t know what about and it doesn’t matter. Here was a man we respected tremendously who was one of us and at the same time a real adult. He was quiet and unassuming. He was happy to serve but able to lead. He wasn’t perfect, but he helped us all grow up to be better people.

In the previous post I chatted about what most people seem to think success is all about, and how it tends to fail. I’d like to suggest that Kim Warwick was an example of true success. He wasn’t rich, but he earned enough to look after himself and his family and never ever indicated he wanted more. He wasn’t famous, except to the people whose lives he touched. He had a little bit of power being in charge of our Scouts and Cubs, but he saw it as a valued responsibility and an opprtunity to serve. To my knowledge never did he misuse his power.

Let me try to express what I think makes a person successful in life:

• They have learned to be content with where they are and what they have at any given moment. They’re not forever waiting for something better.
• They know what really matters in life, and they know it’s not money or fame or power or…
• They respect each person they come into contact with as a unique individual.
• They are valued team members who work with people. Often they’re well able to accept a leadership role when appropriate and fulfil that role well, but they don’t value power except as a tool to use in benefiting others.
• They are humble. They don’t see themselves as anything special, but they use the talents, abilities and experience they’ve got.
• They have real friends as opposed to lots of acquaintances. Often, depending on their role in life, there are hundreds or even thousands of people who have been blessed by their presence and who would drop whatever they’re doing to help that person if in need.
• They aren’t dependent on  the people round them or independent of everyone else, but interdependant. The help and are helped. They’re involved.

I don’t know many people like that, but am privileged to know and have known a few. To them, thank you so much for enriching our lives.

PS: have I missed anything significant from the list above? Oh, and to those of you who know him, yes of course Peter Jolly is another example.

This article is # 3 in the effective goal-setting series.

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