When you practice, you make mistakes. That’s why you’re practicing…
To get better.
When you learn something new, you make mistakes.
And that’s okay because it means you’re learning.
“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake” – Frank Wilczek
Yet, somehow mistakes can feel like the end of the world. They can suck big time if you fear that others will think you’re stupid.
It’s not so much the mistake but the story we attach to it that makes us feel bad.
At some point society decided that mistakes are a problem. But are they really?
The upside to mistakes
When you’re scared of making mistakes and avoid them at all cost, you miss out on plenty of opportunities for growth.
Imagine your boss asks you to do a new task.
You’ve never done this before and you’re not quite sure if you can handle it.
What is your reaction?
Will you start to panic and secretly look for your brown paper bag?
Or do you get excited that you get to try something new?
Even if failure is an option…
Willingness to be terrible
It’s your willingness to suck at something in the beginning that will help you succeed and get ahead.
It opens up new possibilities, deepens your knowledge, and builds your resilience.
When you can make a mistake, come back from it, try a different strategy, fail again only to get back up again, you train an invaluable strength.r
Resilience
Resilience is like a secret superpower.
It’s the main difference between those who achieve their goals and those who don’t.
Also, when you actually make a mistake you’ll realize that it won’t kill you.
…Your mind likes to paint a much darker picture than what happens in reality.
You stress a lot about messing up, but when it eventually happens, you’ll see that it’s actually not that bad.
Focus
Focus on the right goals. As a culture, we often get caught up in chasing results.
Focus on your progress, not on outcomes.
If you increasingly get better, that’s more important than reaching some random result.
Don’t hold yourself back. You get better by putting yourself out there and being willing to mess up.
“What got you here won’t get you there”, so find yourself a hard enough problem that will make you grow.
Check out this post if you want to read more on the story you attach to failures.
Regards,
Ninja
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