Life is a Marathon, not a Sprint.
Shubham Joshi
December 11, 2017

In life we all have our days of success and failures. Somedays are good when do our tasks perfectly while on some days we are barely able to make it halfway through. The world always expects the best from us, but that doesn’t mean that if we fail to give our best then we are not that good.The disappointment of lagging behind does take a toll on us, but dwelling on that disappointment never helps.

We have to understand that life is a marathon, full of endless opportunities. Some days are good and some are not that good. The best we can do is to capture as many opportunities and turn them into good results with consistency. If we are consistently producing good results, then our chances of getting the best results increases.

I have got this learning from working in software development. Working in the agile model, I set targets for myself daily, sometimes I complete all the targets for the day with perfection, but somedays they just get extended. Getting a feeling of lagging behind is normal in such cases, but if we think too long about this feeling then it also affects my next day’s tasks.

Overtime with the right guidance of my mentors, I have come to deal with this situation. I have realised that we can’t always control the situation so wasting our cognitive resources on thinking about a bad day is futile.

The best way to deal with such situations is to plan out your day properly. We are humans and not Superman, so instead of trying to do all at once, just focus on the high priority tasks first. In case of getting stuck, anticipate the delay and communicate it to your stakeholders. Good communication helps to set up the right expectations and always helps to get an optimum solution. When we dwell too much on a problem, we sometimes get into the mental state called programmers burn out. In this state, our thinking becomes quite narrow and we are not open to new ideas. At such times it is always advisable to take a small break and have some fun activity to refresh your mind.

The best thing we can do is to remain calm and focus on the target. So in case, your day was not so good today, just don’t be so hard on yourself and take things lightly. Life is a marathon, save your stamina and resources so that you can run again tomorrow with fresh energy and better strategy.