Yes, you read that right. You should make mistakes.
For me to be able to write that sentence is nothing short of a miracle. I’ve spent my entire life avoiding making any mistakes.
And you know what, it’s impossible to NOT make a mistake in life. Let alone in your business.
So what if you made peace with and embraced the art of failing?
Ask any wildly successful entrepreneur and they will tell you that the key to creating significant success and truly impacting the world in a meaningful way is to fail – a lot!
Most of the people I know who try to avoid failure (me included) are actually trying to avoid one of three things:
- Losing money
- Wasting time
- Losing respect or love
The stories we make up in our mind about losing something is the real problem. Most humans have made up a story that failure means something bad. What if none of those things happened? What would you be willing to do? What if they happened anyway? Would you be willing to make peace with the process of learning so you could get better at your craft?
I recently heard Sara Blakely, CEO of Spanx, share that her father groomed her to know that failing often was to be celebrated. At the dinner table her father would ask each of the siblings what failures they had during their day. Recoding what failure meant and taking the stigma off allowed Blakely to try anything without worrying about the outcomes.
Failing is simply a learning opportunity. A chance to recognize what doesn’t work. When you are growing and expanding you will make a lot of mistakes. Every decision that leads to a failure is a fantastic opportunity to get closer to what will work.
If you aren’t making mistakes then you aren’t growing.
So what really happens when you avoid making a mistake is you are avoiding growing your impact (and income!)
Way too many visionary, creative entrepreneurs hold themselves back from achieving their goals simply because they are afraid of making a mistake.
I’d like to offer you a simple thought.
Stop focusing on what might go wrong and start focusing on what could go right. Go for it. Reframe your story about mistakes and see every mis-step as a powerful learning on your journey to greatness.
Here’s a free resource to help with creating a new story about failure, my free book, Rewired for Wealth. It will help you learn how to recode your internal success blueprint so you can feel more resilient, confident and courageous as you grow your impact.
Now, how do you feel about making mistakes? I’m curious to hear your thoughts in the comments below…