It’s no secret, I love helping people. I try to be known as a giver and as a connector and I receive questions weekly, often daily, about anything from staging a home to sell to how to market their business and it boils down to my best advice for virtually anyone…
make more mistakes.
Gulp.
“That’s uncomfortable.”
Who likes messing up? Looking stupid? Falling down? Risking your reputation? “Learning new ways to NOT do something.” Well…I do.
But it’s taken a lot of practice. I have made a lot of mistakes. I often make more mistakes before lunch than most people make in a month.
I thank God for the edit button.
Of course…
we don’t really set out to make mistakes. We just commit to moving forward imperfectly.
Here’s the irony. Ready? Even if you aspire to do a project, an appointment, an offering perfectly…there will be mistakes. The Paypal button won’t work. You’ll run out of handouts. You’ll accidentally hit “reply all.” You’ll call someone by the wrong name. Your slip will be showing.
Go ahead and give up on perfection.
Mistakes are inevitable for an “out there” life (in fact, the more “out there” you are, the more mistakes you’ll make! Hooray!)…so why not embrace it?
You can accomplish a lot more when you’re OK with messing up than if you insist on always “being ready.”
One thing I’ve learned in six-plus years of working with small business owners, entrepreneurs and community leaders is everyone is making it up as they go.
Sure, we’re experts and professionals and we often pull things off without a hitch…but it’s more of a surprise than a given. Everyone is just taking the next step, knowing you can always adjust or redirect later. Plus, when the people around us make more mistakes, we empathize, we don’t criticize!
It’s such a cliché to say we learn from our mistakes but of course it’s true. So much of life is about putting yourself out there, trying something and then adjusting. Your first workshop will be…OK. Maybe even great! But you’ll evaluate it and make a few changes. The way you laid out the room, the refreshments you served, the group activity you offered…you tweak them. The next workshop is terrific!…but you still find a few improvements to make. The flow of your presentation and the handout get modified. You add a few components in after your guests offer feedback. You charge more. The third workshop? Spectacular. And it leaves you feeling satisfied and energized. You can’t get to spectacular without the “just OK” first.
When you make more mistakes, you are better equipped to offer people something with substance and staying power because it’s tried and true!
It truly is a commitment to living a more influential life and it takes courage. I hope you’ll take the leap.
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