Being A Better You

“The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.” 


― Jocko Willink

A couple of days ago I posted a link to one of this man's videos on YouTube, one which contains very valuable, applicable truth concerning the attitude of successful people in dealing with a failure or disappointing outcome. 

How we view failure is an attitude; do we accept it and move on or do we use it to make ourselves better? We've all experienced failure, and will continue to do so, unless we learn from it, use it as motivation to drive us to success. What you accept is what you become. If you accept failure and are comfortable with it you have unintentionally admitted to those around you that progression is only an option, that you don't want to be better than you are right this very second. Complacency and stagnation become your warm, fuzzy blanket and you're OK with that.

When I was at Mansfield PD I took the Sergeant's exam, administered by the Civil Service Commission, and failed it. Miserably. I blamed the study material that the test was based on, written by college professors with zero law enforcement experience who viewed the job from the abstractness of their university offices as they sipped their chai tea while wearing sweaters with padded elbows. They didn't know about the streets, how the real world operates; they didn't know about MPD's rules and regs, standard operating procedures or policies. Those professors didn't know local laws and courts.

Why was that test based on teachings and views of those who didn't know?

I had the opportunity to pose that very question to the chairman of the CSC in the elevator of the city building one day; his answer was, basically, that it had always been administered that way. I provided what I believed was a more common-sense approach.

Why not, I surmised, administer a promotional exam based on what we do locally and how we do it? If an officer studies intensively our rules and regulations, policies, local laws and ordinances and still doesn't achieve a score that will get him/her promoted...well, they've bettered themselves nonetheless. Time spent studying wasn't wasted.

A year later, when the next promotional test rolled around...that's what the Civil Service Commission did.

I was promoted to Sergeant.

I could have been complacent and not taken the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Attorney Roeliff Harper about how testing was administered, could have sat on the sidelines and complained about those out-of-touch professors who wrote those out-of-touch manuals and books on how policing is viewed from their ivory towers...but I didn't.

Complaining and being bitter accomplishes nothing. Learn from mistakes and disappointments, develop a path toward your goals and implement a plan that will be your vehicle to get there.

Most of all...make today count.