Do you ever get discouraged when, despite your best attempts to change, you fail to behave in ways that will help you accomplish your goals? Do you find yourself getting stuck in patterns of bad behavior—so much so that you’d rather just give up on change?

In his twenty-minute BIG Idea speech, Ron McMillan teaches an important principle for staying on course with your change goals rather than getting mired in discouragement. The principle: turn bad days into good data by becoming the scientist rather than the subject.

The successful changers Ron and his coauthors studied respond to a bad day with curiosity rather than condemnation. In order to do that, Ron says the first step is recognizing that whenever you experience discouragement, you are the subject. To become the scientist, you must step out of that discouragement and analyze your behavior.

So if you have a bad day, how can you, the scientist, use that bad day to help you, the subject, move forward?

Ron says when examining personal behavior you want to do two things:

1. Identify Crucial Moments
2. Create Vital Behaviors

Visit the VitalSmarts Video Channel and Select Ron’s Turn Really Bad Days Into Really Good Data BIG Idea speech to learn tactics for creating a plan to avoid repeating mistakes. The important takeaway is not to be perfect, but to be always progressing.