How to Make a Lot Of Mistakes and Enjoy Life to the Full

One of my followers asked me to write an article on how to overcome the fear of making mistakes. She has such a fear and sometimes she cannot even take the first step as she is terribly afraid of making a mistake. This applies not only to responsible matters where the cost of a failure can be very high but even to some trifling things. No one would even notice if she did something wrong. This fear hinders her in her work and personal life. And there are many other examples around her when people just do something without overthinking. They maybe do it poorly, make lots of mistakes and redo it, but at the end they do it, and they have long gone far.

I began to ponder this question. At first it was difficult to understand how much this applies to me personally. Yes, I can brace myself up and approach a problem for a long time because I go around the bush and study various options for the outcomes. Also, my perfectionism does not allow me either to start or finish something, because the ideal is impossible. But I cannot say that this is the fear of a mistake. Although if we dig deeper, then what is the ideal if not something without mistakes and flaws.

I started looking for different trainings and articles about mistakes and was shocked. The Internet is just inundated with materials titled "10 Mistakes to Avoid When ...", "Mistakes You Should Avoid In ...", "How to Avoid Common Mistakes At ..."

Wow. It seems like people are really afraid to make mistakes.

Perhaps it comes from our childhood. I remember how our whole group in kindergarten enjoyed drawing and playdough modeling until one fine day. The teachers started evaluating us. They handed over paper stars for the drawings and crafts that were best in their opinion. Children who previously just enjoyed the process, began to watch each other. Someone stopped being creative and doing something of their own, and copied what the owner of the largest number of stars did. Someone sat silently and cried, not even wanting to start drawing and modeling. Many children got distracted and didn't obey, they threw playdough and pieces of paper at each other, teased those who had many stars, completely lost interest in their studies. Indeed, why start if no one appreciates your creation?

Usually, history cherishes only great victories, achievements and inventions. Not far to seek ― look at your friends' Instagram profiles. Few people claim to the whole world how they screwed up. It's not even about screwing up, but in general, rarely does anyone show how they got from point A to point B. Everyone is already perfect.

However, learning is impossible without mistakes and losses. Think back to when you were just starting to do something, say, you started playing the violin. You didn't immediately become Vanessa-Mae. I mean, Vanessa-Mae herself has probably come a long way to mastery. Olympic champions also train daily all their lives, probably making many mistakes along the way before reaching their goals.

It doesn't matter where you got your fear of mistakes. It's like Will Smith's video on Fault vs Responsibility. Check out his Instagram if you haven't seen it. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that you are now afraid to make mistakes and this hinders you in life. But it is your responsibility to fix it, overcome it, and start living freely and happily. As long as you blame someone or something, you are in the role of the victim. When you take responsibility for your life and your happiness, you regain strength.

So how do you stop being afraid of being wrong, start acting (and making a lot of mistakes) and live your life to the fullest?

Positive attitude.

Pessimists give up after the first unsuccessful attempts because they decide that this will always be the case. They also generalize and transfer one failure to other areas of life. For example, "I did not succeed in drawing => I am not a creative person, so everything that relates to creativity should be excluded => I am generally a loser in life." What do the optimists think? They believe that every failure is an isolated incident and, in general, a normal learning process. And they don't identify failure with themselves. Failure says nothing about a person as a person. If that’s unusual for you, then pretend to be optimistic the next time you make a mistake. Anyway, take mistakes and failures as something good in your life. Any event is just an event. We color it ourselves and make it either good or bad. If you shift the focus towards positive, then you yourself will be surprised how it will change your life. Yes, everything happens for the best. And yes, the universe cares about me.

Short-term planning.

I write about this often, but it has changed my life so much that I will continue to share it with everyone. Hope it helps someone else. I have big goals and dreams but I set myself short goals for 9 weeks (sprint) and this is how I have been living for the past three years. I usually highlight 3-4 areas in my life for each sprint, for example, health, career, and relationships. Then I set goals for each area. What I want to achieve in 9 weeks. The goals should obviously be SMART.

It was not I who invented it, but Katerina Lengold. You can read more about this in my article.

Why 9 weeks? Goals for 9 weeks aren't as huge and scary as a 'life purpose' or a 'lifetime dream'. At the same time, in 9 weeks it becomes clear whether it makes sense to move further in this direction or it is worth changing the vector of development.

I am finishing the 17th sprint now and accidentally revisited all previous sprints. It struck me that when I first started, my goals were small, modest, and at the same time I did not always achieve them. But sprint after sprint, I saw how I change. I could clearly observe my progress. For example, let's take the health sector. I had a habit of giving up on this matter. At first, I didn’t achieve anything. I set a goal to get 7-9 hours of sleep every day. I ended up sleeping only 11 out of 63 days in the first sprint. Apparently it was on the weekend :) I ignored the doctors' appointments. I went in for sports only once a week. My weight instead of going down, on the contrary, increased. However, with each sprint, my goals became more ambitious and more often attainable. And now. Now I sleep at least 7 hours 60 out of 63 days. I train 6 days a week. I have lost 8 kg and overall feel more energetic. Surprisingly, I three years ago and I now, these girls, they are two different people.

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Reward.

If your goal is big, then obviously the path to it is very long. Even an ordinary step on the way to it does not seem to bring it closer. And if you suddenly stumble or encounter an obstacle, you generally think why all this is needed. This is why I love short-term goals so much. For the achievement of each of them, I reward myself. I have compiled a list of rewards that I can receive every time I reach one of the goals of the current sprint. For everyone it will be something different. Think about what gives you joy and reward yourself for small wins.

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Post-mortem.

We have already discussed that mistakes should be taken positively. They are part of the learning process and will inevitably come your way. "Only those who do nothing make no mistakes." These words are attributed to many politicians and philosophers, but it seems to me that this saying must be very ancient. However, being positive about mistakes doesn't mean ignoring them. Therefore, there is another quote on this topic: "Lord, save me from a person who never makes mistakes, and also from a person who makes the same mistake twice."

When the emotions of failure calm down, think about what caused the mistake, what should be done differently next time so that the mistake does not repeat itself. I always try to give feedback to candidates. In my practice, there were several cases when, after a few months or years, they came back to me and said that they had worked on themselves, now they have the necessary level of skills in order to apply for the desired position. How cool is that?