Don’t fear mistakes

“It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually.” – Abraham Maslow

One of the most common obstacles preventing us from fully engaging in our lives and developing our highest potentials is fear. No one likes to fail and most of us feel that our failures somehow reflect our value and worthiness as a human being. In truth, a much better reflection of our qualities is found in our efforts.

The only way to overcome our insecurities is to challenge them, to extend ourselves by trying new things or things we are uncomfortable with. As we know, many of our most valuable lessons came from our mistakes. One of Thomas Edison’s most famous quotes when asked about all of the failures he had trying to invent the lightbulb was, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Our lives are meant to be lived. Our lives are rare and precious opportunity to grow, learn, and do meaningful things. Life is not a spectator sport in which we sit comfortably on the sidelines watching everyone else, hoping our flaws go unnoticed. We are not perfect and life is messy. In order to make it meaningful, we need to be willing to dig in, get a little messy, and not worry about how we look to others.

It can be easy to accept and support the efforts of others when they fail, yet be more critical of ourselves. We invite you to remember, just as others are not perfect and make mistakes daily, the same is true of you. As the old saying goes, the only one who doesn’t make a error, is the one not playing the game.

Today I invite you to try to notice when a fear or anxiety arises around making a mistake. Give yourself permission to make mistakes and see if you might engage in some activity or conversation you would not normally because of this fear. We grow and learn by doing and life is a practice not a perfection. – John Bruna

MLP Community 1The above is a an excerpt from one the daily emails sent to the members of the Mindful Life Community. I invite you to explore our community and consider joining.

Copyright © 2017 John Bruna. All rights reserved.

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