Beyond Lucky: Taking Ownership of My Wins (And Losses)
“It’s better to be lucky than good.” I have no clue where I first heard this phrase, but I suspect it was during my pediatric critical care fellowship. And it’s become a common refrain in my faculty life. Anybody who’s worked with me for more than a few shifts has heard me say, “I’ve gotten out of more tight spots because of young physiology than my skill.” (The young physiology is my patients’, not mine.) Take this morning, for instance. I was supposed to have a breakfast meeting, but the other person canceled. Was I annoyed? Oh, not today. We were meeting at my absolute favorite breakfast place right by my hospital. I have spent entire days there, first having breakfast and then staying through a late lunch, taking advantage of their free WIFI to get through a bunch of work with a level of productivity I could never have at work or home. (Thank you for everything, Fido!) So, the luck of already being in one of my favorite spots and having my calendar open up? Pure, unadulterated joy. I settled in, got out my planner, and got to work.
A lot has been said about luck, and it’s not as joyful as I’d like. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Or from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Ouch. To bring it into the modern age and get a woman’s perspective, I’ll look to Shonda Rhimes, who said, “I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way, and I work really, really hard. Don't call me lucky. Call me a badass.” Yes. Point taken.
Why am I so quick to credit luck for my good fortune? Is it humility? Is it keeping my ego in check? Those are the polite reasons, but the real reason is darker. If my good fortune is due to luck, it has nothing to do with me. If my good fortune is due to my hard work and that fortune falls, it’s because I’ve stopped working, gotten lazy, screwed up or fallen short somehow. If I don’t take credit for my wins, I don’t have to be burdened by my losses.
It’s probably time to start taking credit for my wins so I can ease into being more responsible for my losses. What set me up for my free morning at Fido? Last night, I worked my tail off to get a big thing done so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore this week. My boundaries around email mean that I haven’t checked it in some time, so I didn’t get the message that my meeting mate was canceling until I arrived. I set myself up for success to get out of the house in time for the meeting by scheduling a session with my trainer at the perfect time for me to get up, meet him, hustle back to the house to get cleaned up, and get to the meeting with no lollygagging. The no lollygagging means not getting distracted by things that could throw off my plan, including “just checking my email real quick.” (The personal trainer means I’m doing my darnedest to hang onto my young physiology and retain the ability to hustle.) All that preparation means I set myself up for what will be one of my favorite parts of this week. What losses do I need to take responsibility for? I will start small; exercises in self-flagellation do not make for the building of good habits anymore. My session at the gym could’ve been better. I’ve been working with my trainer for six months, and he still grabs single-digit weights for me with some of the exercises. I haven’t been paying attention to what I eat, and I don’t do anything exercise-wise on the days I don’t meet with him. That’s 100% on me, I should do better. Acknowledging that loss, that area where I’m not working hard, so I don’t have the results that I want, doesn’t feel that bad. It feels reasonable. Rational. Like a necessary step to take if I want to have more wins.
Where are you crediting luck for all your hard work? Where are you shying away from an opportunity because, “Welp, it’s just not going to work out anyway.” Leave it to Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, to put it in a way that sounds right and is the explanation I can get behind, “I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future.”