Mistakes are inevitable. We’re all human. None of us are perfect, and that means that, sometimes, we’re going to make mistakes. In our jobs, in our business, in our personal lives. Mistakes are going to happen.
Making mistakes is part of life. We learn our most important lessons from the errors that we’ve make along the way. There is no shame in making a mistake. Everyone does it, and the most successful people typically make more of them than most people.
The biggest problem comes in when we refuse to acknowledge that we’ve made a mistake. When we’re so caught up in trying to prove that we’re right, that we’re infallible, that we’re so incredible at what we do that we could never do/say/think something that’s wrong.
I’m the best (insert profession here) there ever was. I never make mistakes!
It takes a very strong mind to admit that there’s something you don’t know. It requires a lot of self confidence to admit that your opinion is wrong. It demands a tremendous amount of wisdom to realize that the facts don’t line up exactly like you thought they did.
It takes a big person to admit their mistake. No one wants to look like they don’t know something. In today’s superficial, shallow, facade-driven world, appearance is everything. And we all feel the need to maintain our appearance at all costs.
More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying that they made them.
-Anonymous
Even when immutable facts say otherwise, we hang on to our opinions, desperately clinging to the appearance of confidence.
None of us wants to be wrong.
But we are. We all are. Every one of us is wrong on a regular basis. Just because we don’t want to admit we’re off the mark doesn’t change the fact that we’re incorrect.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong. It’s how we learn. To paraphrase a quote from Jules Verne, life is made up of mistakes; but they are mistakes which are useful to make, because they lead little by little to wisdom.
The best thing we can do is to realize that we’re fallible. Realize that we’re not perfect. Come to an understanding that we’re going to make mistakes. We’re all going to make mistakes in our lives, our businesses, and our relationships.
The important thing is to grasp this new reality and decide to do something with it. To understand that mistakes are a part of life, and that the best thing we can do is to know they’re coming, learn as much as we can from them, and vow to try to never make the same mistake twice.
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
-George Bernard Shaw
It’s tough running a business. It’s difficult being the one in charge. It’s hard to be responsible for making all these decisions. It’s even harder knowing that sometimes we’re going to screw it up.
Just make sure that we don’t let our fear of making a mistake, our apprehension about being wrong, our anxiety about someone seeing through our appearance, keep us from being brave enough to suffer through those mistakes.
It’s the only way we’ll ever get better.
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Thanks, Joe
