Who remembers who invented the light bulb?

Give yourself a point if you said Thomas Edison.

Do you know how many times he “failed” in his experiments on the way to getting a working bulb?

No, me neither.

I’d heard 10,000.

But Googling seems to suggest several different numbers.

A quote saying “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

His friend and associate Walter S. Mallory wrote that Edison said to him “I know several thousand things that won’t work!'”

In another quote Edison said “I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.”

Whichever number we go for, it’s quite a lot.

If he hadn’t have stuck with it, we wouldn’t have gotten light bulbs.

Or, more realistically, not for while and everything would be ‘pushed back’ a bit.

And we might only be on PlayStation 2s by now……….

The point of course is that success rarely comes quickly.

There isn’t much in life we do perfectly the first time.

Nearly always it’s some form of starting rubbish and practicing ourselves through mediocre and on to pretty good.

If we keep practicing.

It’s easy to think we’re not “cut out for” things.

That other people who seem to be better at them “are just better”.

Not seeing all the practice and failed attempts.

We probably know this of the very top levels.

We know top level sports people and musicians have put countless hours into getting where they are.

But it’s harder to realise in more day to day life.

We might think “I’m rubbish at exercising”…………..

Missing that those that we perceive to be better than us have just done more workouts.

And that going to the point where you feel you can’t do much more is where the ‘magic’ happens.

Or that “I’m not a very good cook”…………..

Not fully making the connection that those who cook better than us have just spent more time in deliberate practice.

Same with better food choices – they get easier the more we do.

As do less good food choices.

Workouts get easier to turn up for the more of them turn up for.

And easier to miss the more of them we miss.

Not having a drink becomes easier the more we don’t have a drink.

While having a drink becomes easier the more we have a drink.

Not giving in to peer pressure becomes easier by not giving in to peer pressure.

Planning our meals becomes easier by planning our meals.

Leaving food on our plate becomes easier by leaving food on our plate.

Making tactical swaps to what we’re eating becomes easier by making tactical swaps to what we’re eating.

And so on.

————- Check www.myrise.co.uk/apply if you’d like proven help at getting better at the above ————

Each time something doesn’t go how we’d like it’s a chance to learn from that and change it next time.

And it’s powerful to remember that each time we do something we get better at doing it and that doing it again becomes a little easier next time.

Much love,

Jon ‘100 Watt’ Hall

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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.