Sometimes you mess up. You fail, you falter, you fall. And when that happens, you have to make a difficult choice from among three options. The choice is difficult because all three options are sometimes correct!

The three options are: quit, try again, or change.

Sometimes it is absolutely the correct choice to quit. Sometimes you try something and what you learn from the very first failure is that you have made a grave error in judgment and you should walk away from the whole thing. It’s sensible to do that when it’s appropriate! Maybe you attempt to jump a gorge on your skateboard and you end up really, really hurt – you barely survive. Once you’re healed, it’s very sensible to just not do that again.

Sometimes you should try again. You might have almost made it, or you might just need a little more practice. Maybe the stars didn’t align this time, but they could. And sometimes you should change your approach considerably, but still aim for the same goal.

How do you know?

When the horse bucks you and you’re laying on the ground, it can be hard to get a sense of the right answer. Is this horse a lost cause? Do you just need to get back on? Or do you need to walk it around a little first and get it calm, then maybe try a different riding technique?

A lot of it depends on how steep your success ramp is.

All goals need a time frame, or they’re not goals. You can’t ever succeed or fail if you don’t define “by when.” So a true goal is never “tame that horse.” It’s “tame that horse by the end of the year.” You don’t have infinite time in your life.

So whether or not you should quit, try again, or change depends a lot on how much time you have!

If you have a lot of time, then try again. Get in more reps, gather more data, practice, and practice some more. If you have a medium amount of time, change your approach. Try some variations, develop some new ideas, and see what sticks. And if you don’t have much time at all, quit. Walk away before you burn everything in your attempt.

Notice that “a lot of time” becomes “a medium amount of time” after a while! So this also ends up being your order of operations. First, try again. After some tries, change what you’re doing if you still haven’t succeeded. And if you try different things and still don’t get it, know when to walk away and save some juice for the next project.

You can tame any horse and you can climb any ramp, but you can’t ride every horse up every ramp, so be smart.

Have you ever experienced that unpleasant drop in your emotional state right after something good has happened? You experience something very pleasant, but the “reset” back to your normal state of existence then carries with it a sharp shock as the fleeting nature of all moments reasserts itself.

Perhaps this causes you to pursue pleasant experiences again, to recapture what you’ve lost. Perhaps it does the opposite: makes you reticent to pursue those experiences at all if the sensation of loss must accompany every highlight. Hopefully, it just brings you some reflection on the fact that our lives cannot be bottled and held; they must by nature always be moving from one moment into the next.

We exist in light and shadow and the same universal mechanisms that cause the sun to rise also ensure that it will set. What goes up must come down, as they say – but at least you can know it. You can have a safe cushion at the bottom for the fall, and a way to climb the stairs again.

The most persuasive appeal for vegetarianism I’ve ever heard was “Meatless Mondays.” Instead of trying to convince people of the moral imperative or health benefits of a total conversion, the pitch was simply: try skipping meat one day a week.

Many people do this accidentally anyway, this just makes them conscious of it – and lets them feel good about something they were either already doing or could do easily.

Seven people skipping meat one day a week is the equivalent of one full vegetarian, in terms of impact. And it’s much easier to accomplish!

Plus, there are large spillover effects. In the same way that “one pushup” is a great goal because you’re incredibly likely to do more once you’ve started, “Meatless Monday” can turn into more surprisingly quickly.

Pick a change that’s been daunting you. Try making a fraction of that change. Trying to quit smoking? Start with “Smokeless Sundays.” Drink too much coffee? Try getting half a cup instead of going cold turkey.

Direction is more important than distance or speed. Enjoy your half a cup.

Sometimes people want to help. Sometimes they insist on helping, in fact. And many times those people are worse than unhelpful – they’re an active hindrance. Still, you want (or even need) to maintain relationships with those very people outside of this particular circumstance. What do you do?

Have you ever seen an older movie or television show where a woman unexpectedly goes into labor and has to deliver a baby somewhere inconvenient? Someone will take charge and give people instructions, and the instruction for the husband is usually something like “go boil some water.” Do you know why?

To get the husband out of the room.

While there’s an outside chance that some sterilized water may be necessary, it probably won’t be. The main reason you have the husband doing that is so he isn’t doing anything else, like getting in the way. (Nowadays, this is a pretty sexist and patronizing view, but that’s not the point.)

So, have people boil water. Usually, this isn’t a negative – you’re doing someone a favor. They want to help, and you want them around in general. So you help them help you, even if there’s nothing to do.

When I worked at my very first job, often my boss would find work for us to do even if there really wasn’t any in order to make sure we were making money. One time he told us to go “organize the napkin shelf,” so we did. About fifteen minutes into the task, my coworker said “organizing the napkin shelf” and we split our sides laughing at the absurdity of the task we were working so diligently on. But even then we recognized that we weren’t being treated badly – quite the opposite. We were being treated extremely well, because the alternative to this task was to leave, unpaid. We wanted to work, and our boss wanted to support his employees, even without much to actually do.

This happens all the time. Your clients want to “help” with something they shouldn’t even touch. Your junior intern wants to help but it’s a sensitive task. Your kid wants to help you make dinner. No matter what the situation is, if you want to keep that person around, give them something to do. Let them organize the napkin shelf.

A model is only as good as its ability to explain.

Perfect models aren’t models anymore – they’re just, I guess, pictures. A model simplifies, but for clarity. Does yours?

Do people understand the real thing more deeply because of how you explained it? Can they make accurate predictions and realistic plans that will translate over to the living, breathing world?

Then your model is awesome. Practice that – practice modeling things. Sketch diagrams. Draw little doodles and flowcharts. Make them accurate as long as you’re not making them complicated.

See what you learn. See what you can teach.

Core upstream content. That means visible, actionable advice for an organization that also provides a landmark to return to when you get confused.

I don’t like creating “fire and forget” content that assumes people will absorb it perfectly the first time and implement it flawlessly with no challenges. That’s silly.

Instead, I try to create good starting points that also provide a way to circle back. Anchor points, “bases.”

Do this in your organization. Focus on instructional content that gives a core concept and philosophy of implementation, not endless edge cases. Let people come back to base when they need to. Welcome and guide them.

This way, you create a stable “expanding spiral” instead of trying to force a straight line that falters.

Strategy is better than conflict.

An employee goes to their boss and complains that they need a raise, don’t get to do the projects they want, and doesn’t feel in general like they have the resources they need to succeed. The employee is a great asset to the team, and overall likes their workplace, but these things are becoming a problem for them. They don’t want to quit, and the boss doesn’t want to lose them.

But it’s already a conflict! These things need to be resolved, and there’s a great relationship under them – but they’re cause for alarm. Yet this is a bad way to address them. It’s already adversarial.

Now, imagine a different scenario:

The CEO sits down with their Head of People for their weekly digest. The Head of People shares some statistics: 45% of employees have made inquiries about different projects than the ones they’re being assigned, indicating a misalignment of workforce priorities. In addition, an unbiased comprehensive salary report indicates that the company is trending behind the market average, which might cause higher turnover in the near future. Because this is strategy-driven, non-adversarial, and unrelated to any specific employee, it allows the CEO to strategize solutions and actually implement them.

The difference is a system that allows the initial “conflict points” to be distilled into actionable strategy. The Head of People (or Chief Culture Officer, or CHRO, or whatever title they have) is an essential part of this system. Their existence alone encourages the team to voice their concerns, and their role is to consolidate those concerns into something actionable.

Everyone gets heard, efficiency is maintained, and a mutually beneficial relationship is enhanced. Win/wins all around as employee engagement and retention skyrockets and the true power of your organization is unleashed.

If you’re not doing something like this in your organization – why not?

When you find yourself ahead of the curve on something, you can end up doubting the very thing you’re ahead of the curve on.

You look around you and you see no one adopting the new methodology or technique. You see a useful tool laying around unused. And you think: maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you shouldn’t be trying so hard to make this work, maybe it’s not a good idea after all.

Give it a little time. Your early successes will be part of what inspires others. Someone has to be an early adopter, after all. There’s more risk there, certainly. But also greater reward.

Don’t take “verbal shortcuts.” That’s when you want to be thought of a certain way, so you say it instead of being that way until other people say it.

For example: if you want to be thought of as generous, then give. Give until people say you’re generous. But don’t just call yourself generous.

The verbal shortcut is a bad path. It makes people think things about you, all right. But not the things you’re aiming for.

Here’s a good general rule: don’t describe yourself, except to yourself. Talk to the person in the mirror about what you want to be, and be it. Other people will see it and say it – or they won’t. But you’ll sleep a just sleep, and that’s enough.