Raise your hand if you’ve NEVER made a mistake…
Uh huh, that’s what I thought. I can’t see a single hand.
I would ask, “How many of you are afraid of making a mistake?” but I’m afraid that question would be a mistake because according to the world of empirical guessing, four out of five people are afraid to admit they make mistakes because they think admitting to making a mistake is a mistake.
Odd
It’s odd that people are afraid of making mistakes. No one has EVER, EVER, ever, EVER, gone through life without making a mistake. NOONE. EVER. Making mistakes comes with being human, like sneezing. We don’t sneeze and exclaim to ourselves, “You NIN-CoM-PooP!” We sneeze and other people say, “God bless you.”
I am Mistake Prone
God bless me, I make mistakes daily if not hourly. They range from typing in the wrong password to leaving my purse in the red Target cart in their parking lot. I drop, spill, stumble, slip and break things regularly. I leave cupboard doors open and lose tops to bottles. Last week I introduced myself to the same person twice within 5 minutes. I forget to take the tags off my clothing and wear them out in public. Twenty-dollar bills regularly fall out of my pocket. It’s a mistake to put them there.
The great Cosmic Joke
I was born to two perfectionist parents who expected mistake-prone me to be perfect. I was not able to meet this impossible standard, which was painful in a myriad of ways. I believe they were not happy in expecting the same from themselves, God bless them.
But because of both nature and nurture, I became a perfectionist who rejected myself for not being perfect and I became sick doing that. Really sick. When you reject yourself, your body follows suit and begins to reject itself. Luckily meditation (that’s “meditation” - I keep reading medication when I reread this) and creativity reversed most of that. I learned that trying to be a perfectionist is the mistake.
Perfectionism takes the joy out of jobs, creativity, relationships, and life. It’s a lot more fun making mistakes and not worrying about being perfect.
It was a mistake for my parents to expect me not to make mistakes – but they didn’t know I had ADHD so there is that. The silver lining is I became creative and invented a career that has made me happier than I ever imagined possible because of their mistake. Thanks parents! I believe rough childhoods can result in coping skills that build humor, resourcefulness, and resilience. Humor because mistakes really can be something to laugh at, especially when you learn to laugh at yourself.
Their mistake was the grit in my oyster shell that created a pearl. I think that metaphor might have been a mistake, so ignore that. No pearls, but I am passionate about this perfection hang-up and I see how it leads to unhappiness, so I found some intuitive and unconventional ways to help people liberate themselves from their inner oppressive perfectionist. That’s one of my favorite parts of my job. Seeing the relief on people’s face when I tell them it’s okay to be human, lowering the pressure, and forging on through and because of the mistakes.
Henry Link said:
While one person hesitates because he feels inferior,
the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
Sarah
I was listening to talk by a woman named Sarah. She said her dad used to have a routine at the dinner table where she and her brother were asked to share their mistakes. When she shared something like, “I tried out for a team and did horribly,” her dad would give her a high five. He would actually be disappointed if she didn’t have something to share. Failure for her became not trying rather than a failed outcome
She stated: “Many people don’t take risks for fear of failure. They don’t start the business, they don’t create the art they want to create, they don’t go try out to be in the play, or whatever it is for fear of failure and once you redefine that failure as when you’re not trying then life opens in many ways.”
By the way Sara is Sara Blakely founder and CEO of Spanx, one of US’s most successful apparel industries. They sell leggings for $98. She was one of those people busy making mistakes and becoming superior She uses her philosophy in the boardroom; she and her team regularly share what she called Ooops and find the silver lining. It makes for an openly creative environment.
Acceptance
Another silver lining I noticed is people prefer to be around people who are okay with not being perfect.
I once sent out a newsletter that was supposed to be titled Passion Makes Discipline easy. When I went to check my email, because I’m a subscriber too, I saw a newsletter from me, titled,
“Passin Makes Discipline Easy.”
Not only did this typo go out to my 5000 + newsletter list, it also automatically posted to Facebook, Pinterest and at the time, Twitter.
So mustering up my reserve of mistake resilience I’ve collected over years of typos and various and sundry other public mistakes, I sent out another short newsletter called “Mistake Intervention” to all anyone who saw it.
It said this:
Typos: They bug me too
Please place this "o" in the subject line of the last email
where it says "Passin" instead of Passion.[shrieking]
All embarrassed and such,
Jill
I received a bunch of fun emails,
if you were one of them, thank you.
Here are some of them:
Linda: I loved the typo!XXOO
Ellie: I was excited to find out who Passin was.
Dale: Mistake Intervention?
Sounds like a won-n-n-derrful program! Sign. Me. Up.
How much does it cost? I don’t even care about the free one month trial while operators are standing by.
Jennifer: No worries, I’m just passin’ by
Kit: I love the typ. It made me curious about the article. Who is the French guy? Or is he Russian And how can he help. –
Lynda: I thought passin was a new herb.
Joanne: Thanks...your correction made me laugh.
I think they were saying, “God bless you.” We humans like to know we aren’t alone. We all sneeze and we all make mistakes. And some good humor came out of this one, thanks to my readers.
There a freedom in the acceptance of not being perfect. It gives us courage to move forward, explore freely with curiosity, and not be afraid that it doesn’t work out because the consequence is compassion instead of self-alienation. Who doesn’t need compassion! Let the mistakes bigen.
With love and permission,
Jlli
Make some mistakes with me in Taos New Mexico- 2 Spaces left
One of the Modern Day Muses Gives Permission to be Imperfect:
Meet all of them (and a Bodyguard) in a 12-week class January-April 2025