Have Courage to Get it Not Quite Right.

“I just want to get it right.”

I hear this, or versions of this so very often.

Humans, we all have one thing in common – we don’t like failing. Who wants to fail? What if I rephrased it…

Should we want to fail?

I don’t like shoulding… but if there is one should I would advocate for; it’s that we should want to fail more. And by failing, I don’t mean gambling your house away on a risky bet and falling into the pits of despair!

Failing for me means not getting it quite right first time – in anything. If it’s not the ‘perfect’ outcome or it hasn’t met expectations – then that’s some sort of fail. And it’s a good thing!

But we have spent so long conditioning perfectionism that we have lost the value of our failings - especially the small ones. It’s just as important, if not more so than succeeding or getting it right first time (all the time…).

Imagine a world where we always got it right first time.

Even as I write those words, I can’t fathom that world.

We would never learn.

Does that mean we would never grow?

Would we feel highs and lows?

Could we be truly satisfied or content, without the bluhhh feeling experienced before?

Would that equal to some sort of AI technology if we always got it right?

And, Bingo!

Being courageous in the eyes of any type of uncertainty and putting ourselves out there, on the line, on the edge, without knowing if you’ll get it right or not, means being vulnerable in some way.

And that’s what makes us all human.

Part of being human is embracing and accepting that we do not know it all. We can’t, it’s just not possible. We need to remind ourselves that even though we look in the mirror year on year with a few more wrinkles and hair greying - we are just giant kids continuing our learning path.

We accept that when we are in school; that we are learning all the time. We don’t say to a kid – “Can you just stop getting it wrong, and get it right please?” How could that be possible? Being in school is a long learning journey or a rite of passage into something greater, a new era beyond.

But it’s a process, nonetheless. We learn by doing. Testing. Failing. Doing it again. Failing again … and at some point, we start getting things right and then we start to understand our strengths and what comes naturally to us. And also importantly what we need to work on.

Whether you’re learning arithmetic or understanding that it’s not a good idea to put your face near the Bunsen burner when you first turn it on – you’re not ridiculed and judged.

So why do we ridicule and judge as adults?

And quite noticeably, I see we mostly ridicule and judge ourselves!

If you were able to shift your perspective and see that failing of all kinds is part of our natural growth, how courageous could you be?

It’s fear of getting it wrong that is holding us all back. When we get it wrong, we are afraid of perception, what people think and say about us. Or how that sits within us, or those of us who hold ourselves to the highest, and sometimes, most unrealistic standards.

So how can you be more courageous to not quite get it right?

There’s probably two approaches here from a coaching point of view:

1.?????? The David Goggins approach. Ex-Navy Seal – YOU JUST NEED TO DO IT! STOP BEING SO LAZY AND SCARED AND JUST DO IT! GET IT RIGHT!! FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

(Ok maybe this is not actually an option to not getting it quite right… I scared myself writing this…)

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2.?????? Or, you can pull out some self-kindness and compassion for yourself and give yourself a break. AND space to move forward. Stop giving yourself a hard time even before you’ve tried, and certainly don’t beat yourself up every time you make a mistake, get it wrong, small, or mammoth.

Imagine what you could achieve over time if you acknowledged all the ways, you could do it better next time. That’s so much more empowering than either: a) holding yourself back from even trying because the fear of failure is too overwhelming, or, b) beating yourself up to a point of self-sabotaging with nothing to gain other than yielding more power to that other side of your unhelpful self-talk.

And this is not to say let’s encourage laziness to get it wrong, or apathy – peh, who cares, I don’t get it right, so what?

It’s not about being apathetic or indifferent. That energy comes from a different mindset. So if you’re feeling apathetic or peh about something, I’d question your passion or drive in whatever you’re doing.

This is about all of us, as humans, having the courage to be in test-mode. Be courageous in playing and dancing through the process, just like we did at school – and get it wrong, to get it right eventually.

And if you’re still getting it wrong like I did in my science classes – you change course because reality is what it is and sometimes, you have to get real! I couldn’t be a dentist even if I wanted to with my science grades… That’s 13 year old Mehibe’s aspirations crushed!

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So, I invite you to give yourself permission to be courageous and step into the unknown without any notion of getting it right and do it from a place of self-kindness and compassion. The more you practice this courage, the more you realise you’re achieving more within your mindset and resilience, ?and you’ll start to see helpful outcomes in the areas that mean something to you.

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