You need to stop believing that making mistakes makes you a failure.
I realize we have been taught that mistakes equal an “F” in school … however, my friend, this is life, not the rules of school.
Mistakes are lessons learned … and we all go through them (and even need them). Yes, all of us.
Mistakes can make us wake up from our unconscious living.
It isn’t mistakes that make you a failure, it’s giving up that creates the failure in your life.
Failure = not getting the results you want when you stop trying.
This past weekend, I was at a swim meet and parents + other coaches did not want their kids to be given disqualification (DQ) slips, since this meet was the season opener. For these parents + coaches, they were concerned the swimmers would then view themselves as failures from the start, for making a mistake in their first race.
The intention is to protect the swimmers from failure.
Wrong.
Instead, if the swimmer does get a DQ slip later in the season, she wants to give up on the race (or even the sport) instead of overcoming this relatively small technical error by trying again.
These DQ slips can be a powerful learning opportunity. Instead of swimmers, parents, and coaches viewing it as a failure, it’s an opportunity to build resilience and cultivate confidence in oneself.
To become successful one must allow for the mistakes to occur, look at it from a place of curiosity and determination that one will learn and improve with commitment and practice.
It’s not the mistakes that make us failures, it’s the fixed mindset, along with the feeling of shame (I’m bad) that allows us to give up on ourselves. Then we truly fail as we can not create the result we truly want when we give up …
Don’t give up, your mistakes are actually a blessing.
smiling,
