For most of us the belief that mistakes are bad is deeply ingrained from early childhood. We are embarrassed when we don’t do something right. We feel smaller when we mess up.
In our effort to avoid embarrassment we often learn an acceptable way of doing things and then we stick to it. Once we have learnt this acceptable pattern and feel satisfied that we are doing it ‘right’ we keep doing the same thing over and over again.
After a while we no longer think about it. Soon we are no longer providing our brains with the variation they need to do their job as successfully as they are capable of doing.
When we fear mistakes, we drain the life energy from the process and risk achieving only lesser goals or giving up altogether.
Too frequently we encounter variations in our lives which we view as mistakes.
We do something awkwardly, we play a wrong note, we misuse a word.
We make a wrong turn and get lost. On the surface all of those can be seen as mistakes.
But what would happen if you were to treat these ‘mistakes’ as nature’s way of presenting you with variation.
You might then begin to think in terms of it just being different, instead of feeling bad about yourself because something is wrong, you will become curious, discover new possibilities, and become creative.
It is often our mistakes, which bring sudden, unexpected change, and provide us with the variation we need to wake up our brains.
If every experience feels, looks and seems the same our brains will have nothing to work with and we will have no choice but to repeat ourselves…and repeat ourselves…. and repeat ourselves
It is challenging to give ourselves permission to do something badly or go in the wrong direction, but when applied it works with amazing efficiency to help people change and improve an old pattern or learn a new one.
It takes courage to allow variations and give ourselves permission to play.
Yet it is a necessity if we are to be vital and feel good about ourselves.
Allow yourself lots of mistakes. Enjoy mistakes. Do not worry about doing it right. Mistakes create a treasure trove of information and opportunity for your brain and yourself to discover a way to achieve your goal.
Our brains are not prewired to do what we do.
Instead we are self-correcting systems that require lots of experimentation in order to have all we need to achieve our goals.
The greater and more challenging the goal, the more room we need for mistakes and self-correction.
The history of science is filled with examples of major breakthroughs that came about through apparent mistakes that forced people to step outside what they thought they knew.
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