I’ll say it again … You have to fail to succeed.
When you read that phrase does your mind conjure up the idea of failure as the end result?
Or do you look upon failure as a means to success?
If you want to overcome the fear of making mistakes you need to …
View failure as the path to success
Having some fear of making mistakes can be a good thing.
It can help to improve your performance.
But excessive fear can cause problems.
I am an ex-convent school girl.
(Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes.)
When I was young, making a mistake was considered a sin.
I can hear you say “If you treat your mistakes like sins what chance do you have of achieving success?”
And like many people who fear making mistakes, I had a tendency towards perfectionism.
That’s either a blessing or a curse, depending upon your point of view.
So for me, failure was not an option.
When it happened, it felt like the end of the world.
I remember sitting up in bed with my schoolbooks at night-time.
And rewriting my homework until it was picture perfect at gone 3 in the morning.
(My mother still reminds me to this day.)
Nuns ran our school and they blasted us with religion.
But we did get an insanely good education.
I have a lot to be grateful for.
I learned heaps about self-discipline and self-control.
But as I grew up overcoming the fear of failure didn’t come easily.
I was a work in progress for quite a while.
The good news is when I went into business for myself, I learned there is an upside to being a perfectionist.
I found I have no problem in over-delivering on value.
Because of the incredibly high standards I set for myself.
Ok, I call myself a “perfectionist”, but in a light-hearted, positive manner.
Fortunately for me, it’s not an obsession.
I don’t drive myself crazy trying to always reach an unattainable goal.
I’ve learned to accept that sometimes good enough really is good enough.
The cold, hard truth about making mistakes
You have to make mistakes if you’re going to get ahead in business.
You need to be always experimenting with different ideas and strategies to see what works and what doesn’t.
If you don’t make mistakes you’re just not making as much progress as you could.
Building a business is a fascinating journey.
You get to learn so much about yourself.
The dawning of each day brings new challenges to deal with, new technology to learn, and new boundaries to burn.
You have to accept that doing your best is the best you can do.
When you make a mistake, be prepared to take accountability for it.
Owning your mistakes will make you powerful.
If you found this article interesting, here’s another you might like to check out: WHY ARE THE SMARTEST PEOPLE NOT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL