Why 'get it right' can be wrong.

Let's work hard to get it right. That’s what we hear from the moment we’re born.

Is she feeding the right way? Is she walking in the right way? Is she wearing the right school uniform and hanging with the right people? Our formative years are packed with ‘get it right’ moments that point to our potential to ‘get it right’ in life.

And we stay on the ‘right’ train, right through life. And it’s holding us back.

Getting it right means not getting it wrong.

This is where the chaos starts. As animals evolved from slugs, the parts of our brains designed to protect us are more evolved and effective than the bits we use on the daily to do our jobs. We’re hard-wired into negative thoughts to keep us safe from extinction.

So whenever someone talks of “getting it right” our lizard brains will spin it around and scream about the risks of “getting it wrong”. It’s phenomenally unhelpful.

Trying to 'not get it wrong' is a backwards goal.

This is obvious. But we all do it every day. When our instincts scream that the best way to get it right is to not get it wrong, we dodge uncertainty, shut down opportunity and desperately seek rules to follow and safety nets to rest in.

And it’s totally normal. Nine out of ten of us are afraid of uncertainty. We get an autonomic fear response. That means we feel it, physically. We get knots in our stomachs and our heart rate goes up. That’s lizard brain doing its job to keep us safe from harm.

But dodging the unknown also means missing out. Nine out of ten of us also regret our missed opportunities. Those moments of ‘dammit’. Dammit, I thought of that. Dammit, I could have done that. Dammit, I should have gone on that date or off to that party or into that uncertain situation.

Our lizard brains are cutting our lunch. And most of us don’t like it. But it's easier than you think to turn it around.

Don't aim for 'right' aim for 'best'.

Right is an absolute. It is, or it isn’t. And the opposite of right is wrong. But the world doesn’t work like that. Life is organic, not binary. There aren’t any absolute right answers. Just good ones and could-be-better ones. When we think like that, we can’t go too far wrong.

So don't look for the "right answer" - aim for the "best" one. Because "best" will always make stuff better, while "right" brings the risk of "wrong". And it's hard to do great stuff when you're scared about wrong with a lizard brain screaming in your gut.

So reset the goal posts, silence the reptile and forget the idea of getting it right. Aim at "awesome" instead. And chances are you’ll land up somewhere “pretty bloody good”.