Noticing My Failure

I realised I had made a mistake the moment the word finished coming out of my mouth, but it was too late to correct myself.

I was dropping my sister off at the station and had been talking to her on the way there. But as I took the last turn and pulled up outside the station, I noticed my energy levels had crashed. I was speaking with very low energy and in a monotone. Not ideal on a normal day, but especially when my sister was excited for an event she was attending.

It was the morning. I hadn’t slept well and hadn’t had time to have some coffee, so I felt half dead. But this wasn’t a good enough excuse. And I had spent a lot of time and energy improving my communication skills over the previous few months. And I had seen a lot of improvements when I was in the classes.

But as she got out of my car, I thought: “What’s the point of all that improvement I’ve made if I can only use it in a class and I can’t apply it with my family?”.

This was the first time I had noticed how little energy and monotone I was in a conversation with a family member.

As I drove home, I started questioning myself. Had I actually improved or was I just imagining it? And if I had improved, why couldn’t I apply it in the real world? Was all that training just a waste of time and effort?

I parked my car in front of my house and I sat for a few moments feeling shit.

But then I realised this was the first time I had noticed my low energy and my monotone voice. I wouldn’t have even realised my mistake six months earlier, before doing any of the communication training.

This was a big step in improvement - becoming more aware of when I wasn’t doing as well as I could.

I still didn’t feel great, but as I got out of the car, I felt less bad knowing I was taking a step towards where I wanted to be.