Yesterday I talked about the importance of taking action to pursue your dreams. Today I want to talk about something that can happen when you do take action: Mistakes.
Sometimes you extend yourself. You take a risk. You try something. It goes badly. Here’s what’s important about that moment: you must pause and learn from it. Let yourself feel crummy because things didn’t go well. That’s fine. But then get back into it and figure out what went wrong.
It’s when we learn from our mistakes that we grow. Is it scary? Sure. But we do it anyway because We Can Do Hard Things (even when we think we can’t).
Every single mentor I have ever had has been a multi-millionaire, and every single one of them has told me that they have made mistakes in their careers. We all have! We make mistakes, we learn from them, and we move on and are better for the experience.
In all my years, I’ve never met someone who was a great success and hadn’t screwed something up pretty badly at least once time. If you take risks and you try things, you sometimes make mistakes. It’s that simple. If you take no risks and try nothing, you’ll stay safe, sure, but you won’t be very successful. And you’ll probably still make some mistakes anyway.
Mistakes are not the end of the world. It feels that way sometimes, especially if you have an inclination toward perfectionism. But it’s really not the end of the world. In fact, it can be just the beginning.
Sometimes I tell my clients, “Go out there and make some mistakes!” It’s a wonderful way to learn. So today I’ll tell you the same thing. Go out and make some mistakes. Big ones that you can learn from, if possible. You’ll be so much better for it and you’ll have learned so much moving forward.
