No one is perfect. And while many preach the value of failure and making mistakes, clearly you don't need to pursue either. You're going to make mistakes - the question is whether you learn from them.
Each year you should take time to ask yourself the following questions about your work, your calling - to assess your professional and personal success.
#1: What is working well?
These are places where often it is wise to invest additional time and resources. Exploit what's working until that well is a steady stream of productivity and success.
There will always be more than enough ways to spend your time and resources. My clients are bombarded with ideas for growing their businesses - their problem isn't ideas. The challenge is sifting through those ideas to find the ones worth pursuing. If you've found something that's working don't abandon it for the unproven promise of something better.
[NOTE: This is the point where it may sound like I'm speaking only of for-profit business practices, but having been a college professor and administrator for 13 years, I am thinking of applications to my classroom teaching and not-for-profit management experiences as well. These questions apply equally to my personal life as husband and father.]
#2: Is there another source your should be tapping?
This is an opportunity and a trap. An opportunity if you can fully test and ramp up a new source alongside what is currently working.
It's a trap if it causes you to abandon what is working to gamble on the unknown and that unknown comes up empty.
Of course, if your work is failing, then a total overhaul may be your last hope.
#3: What hasn't been working?
Either revise or drop what isn't working. Revise if it is an issue of proper implementation, additional training, or some other reasonable tweak. Drop if it is a distraction from your core focus, it isn't practical given who you are, or it was a great theory that doesn't translate well into practice.
#4: Will this work for me?
You are not going to change fundamentally who you are over the course of your life. What you can and should do is to become a mature version of yourself, building on your strengths and gifting and surrounding yourselves with those who can complement your areas of weakness.
In the opening to the story of David and Goliath, David is offered the armor of King Saul to wear in his upcoming battle. David is a teenager who is much smaller than Saul and so Saul's armor only hinders his movement. Just because Saul's armor works for him does not mean it will work for you.
Bottom Line: Read all of the books, listen to all of the speakers, and then remember that what you are really hearing is someone who is saying, "This is what worked for me and I think you should try it" or even "This is an idea I had that I think sounds really good and is appealing to my audiences, I think you should try it." Saul's armor may be a perfect fit or it may simply weigh you down.
