If you make a mistake, you could ruin your chances of living the life you want.
One single mistake and you’re done.
It’s essential that you get everything perfect before you start.
Right?
No.
Somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn.
We learned to believe that mistakes are to be avoided like old dishes in the sink.
We learned that perfection was essential, because only then would we be guaranteed success, and happiness.
But life doesn’t work like that.
There is no perfection. There is only incremental improvement.
If there’s anything you should be afraid of, it’s not making any mistakes at all.
Why Making Mistakes Seems Scary
Anticipating mistakes and knowing what might go wrong is all fine and good. But when you end up in Anxiety Land, it becomes a problem.
As human beings, we’re experts at tuning into potential threats.
However, when you want to do what you love, you’re exploring new territory, which means you have no idea what to expect.
And that means that your internal radar will come up with threats that do not even exist.
Even worse, once you’ve come up with an imaginary threat, you tend to imagine what consequences it leads to if it were to happen.
It all seems real, yet it has no bearing in reality.
Making mistakes seems scary because we believe the horror stories that our mind weaves.
The Cold, Hard Truth About Making Mistakes
If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not experimenting enough.
For example, building a business is a fascinating journey. It helps you create something that supports your lifestyle and helps you grow as a person.
Every day, there are new fears to face, new technologies to learn, and new boundaries to poke at.
You’re not on this planet to succumb to your fears. You’re not made to hide in the closet when imaginary monsters lurk under the bed.
You’re here to face your fears and boldly go where you have not gone before. But you have to make an internal shift first.
You have to stop taking your excuses seriously, stop believing every story your mind tells.
When this clicks, you realize that you can only do your best with what you have, where you are.
So, take action, and learn from your mistakes.
How to Take Bold Action
You can only do what you can do. Life is way too important to take seriously.
You’ll keep moving forward, exploring what life has to offer.
Your fear of making mistakes may never go away. And that’s fine. It’s normal.
You’ll never learn everything.
You’ll never eliminate every risk.
You’ll make plenty of mistakes.
But so what?
Destination: Joyous Determination
It’s time to make the shift from prisoner of your fears to joyously pursuing what makes you come alive.
When you truly become sick of being controlled by your fears, you become determined.
It’s like in the movie, the Matrix. When Neo realizes he is The One. He suddenly sees the Matrix for what it is. He embraces his true power.
Suddenly you’re focused. Obstacles still exist, but you begin to wonder: “What tiny step can I take next?”
You keep moving forward, one relaxed step at a time.
If you don’t know where to start, you’ll learn.
If you’re afraid of putting yourself out there, you’ll do it anyway, and see what happens.
If your mind comes up with excuses, so what?
The secret is that there is no secret.
There is just pure focus on what matters: Following what makes your heart sing.
Do you want to follow the nudges of your soul, or do you want to stay where you are?
Red pill or blue pill?
It’s up to you.
Relaxed regards,
Henri
P.S. Don’t know what your passion is yet? Then I invite you to check out my popular book Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself (this is an affiliate link which helps support what I do at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance!).
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Well said/written
In order to grow & accomplish things in life; we have to be willing to make mistakes even when we are afraid.
We’ll never how far we can go the distance, if were afraid to take the hits in life.
You have been willing to take hits & keep moving forward like a boss.
I find it incredibly easy to forget that making mistakes; along the way will teach you so much in achieving what your striving for, than if we never take the leap of courage.
Great Posts Henri 🙂
Agreed. Making mistakes isn’t fun, and I’d rather avoid them, but it seems pretty impossible if you want to get stuff done.
Thank you very much for this article. I will be sure to print this out and read it every day before I start my day.
It seems we all go through the same phases 😉
Henri,
I love the movie references. 😀 I’m an original series Star Trek fan. And I often feel like Neo having a day life identity and a night life identity since I’ve told nobody at work what I’m up to while trying hard to build something that will allow me to escape.
I take action by practicing mindfulness when I feel fear. Mindfulness brings my focus back to the present moment instead of listening to the stories my mind is creating about the future. Sometimes, by coming back to the present, an actionable doable step presents itself.
And each time I finish a doable step, I create more confidence and find additional steps are easier to take. And the nice thing about this method is you can “rinse and repeat” however many times fear reappears and threatens to make you stuck.
“Screw this, I’m gonna do it.” Yeah. Me too.
I completely agree on the mindfulness part. I do that a lot whenever I’m overwhelmed, frustrated or just plain stuck.
Stay with the feeling, let it be, breathe, and relax. It makes all the difference. There’s nothing worse than trying to figure things out when you’re in a negative state of mind.
Mistakes makes us grow as a better person if properly corrected.
thanks for sharing.
Absolutely!
Hi Henri,
Thank you so much for this post. I recently started my own business and I particularly found online marketing a challenge because of my fear of making mistakes. I am going to keep on putting myself out there as you suggest because I know the more I do it, the more comfortable I will become.
That’s an attitude that will help you soar. And the good thing is that the more you do it, the more the same attitude will ripple out to the rest of your life.
In the end, that is up to you, and how your temperament. You also have to distinguish between fear that has grounds in reality, and fear that is just worrying about the worst case scenario. We are all responsible for ourselves. So as long as you inform people to be careful, and let them know about the risks, I don’t see a problem.
You can be humble about what you know, and what you don’t know. I don’t pretend to know everything. I simply share what has worked for me.
Great article Henri! As I start writing my book fear comes to the surface, but I let it be and try not to attach to it. As you say, it’s just a story. Takes practice but definitely doable. Read somewhere that courage isn’t the lack of fear but the willingness to go on in spite of it. That’s life 🙂
That’s life, indeed. Building your own business, writing, or putting yourself out there in any way is a great way to grow. Thanks for sharing, Deb 🙂
Hey Henri,
Thanks for an awesome post…it hit me where I live! More about that later.
In early life my father was not only a perfectionist, but he was a taskmaster that demanded nothing less than perfection from me. This flew in the face of his inequities and flaws, but since I was so little I had no voice to protest.
Fast forward to today.
I’m a tolerable mixture of perfectionism and fallibility, but often the perfectionism soundly outweighs my understanding that I’m not God. I often wrest with this discrepancy, but in the intervening years I’ve had angels in my path.
I once worked for a fantastic boss who told me, “if you don’t make mistakes, then I know you’re not doing anything.”
I took that to heart and relished my mistakes because he took the time to help me understand how to profit from them.
Another mentor told me once, “A mistake is simply an invitation to try again.”
I seized that concept to continue to try, try, and try again.
That being said I still have problems overcoming my perfectionistic tendencies that plagued my early years, while attempting to reconcile my human tendency to be just that – human.
I love your assertion that “The secret is that there is no secret,” is a truth that hit me right between the eyes. I’ve been searching for “the secret” that will propel me to the level that I want to achieve in business, but I’ve been terrified that I’ll never find it and become a dismal failure.
Now I know that failure can only manifest if I quit. As long as I continue to work toward my goals, I can’t fail and I will achieve the success that I envision. Yet that vision continually changes, so my efforts will continue to morph with the effort that I proffer.
Thanks for an incredible post. I continue to identify with your brand of thinking, your deep spiritual insights, and your helpful ideas regarding business and life in general.
Hey Tom!
Thanks for the great comment.
You were lucky to bump into some of your teachers. Wise words, indeed.
Most people are afraid of failure, so they never start, which means they instantly fail. To me, things have become a lot more fun as I’ve stopped taking myself so seriously.
We can play with life and business, and see where it takes us. Failure is a story we tell ourselves.
Doesn’t mean things won’t sting, but we keep going, and we keep playing 🙂
Thanks for the post, Henri. I’ve really appreciated content like this that you’ve posted. You’ve helped me break through a bunch of fears I had about starting my website, and now I’ve done a lot more work on it and feel really good!
I’ve had to work through fear of making mistakes, of my content not being good enough, of my site not looking good enough, and of putting myself out there. I’ve had to figure out that there’s no way I’m going to get where I want to go if I stop because I’m afraid of all those things. There’s a much better chance of being able to support myself and travel the world if I keep going.
Glad to hear that, Lauren. After a while you just have to realize that your fears don’t have to control you. You may tremble, but you can still move, and when you do, the trembling often subsides. Keep rocking 🙂
Hi Henri
When I first started blogging, I did not want to make any mistake. This almost made me give up on blogging instantly.
However, I decided that making a mistake isn’t bad as long as I am open and ready to learn and so I have been blogging since then and the experience is quite interesting.
Thanks for sharing this post. Take Care.
Well put!
Hi Henri, and how are you today?
I am truly inspired.
Since I stumbled on your site, and I love it. I find myself bookmarking each of your articles; they’re refreshing, encouraging, inspiring, and make me think.
It’s also amazing how I find myself sincerely connecting with all that you share. And I don’t believe we are never too old to learn new things, or too old to learn things new when we’re much older than the author.
I have always believed everything I would do had to be done just right. Not solely based on my being a perfectionist, but more around my belief system. This do include my opinions of how I seen or would view the world and its people.
I don’t see myself being above anyone based on my “belief system” either, but I am still human and fallible.
See Henri, I have faced many failures with faults, and will continue to fail as long as there is life in my body. Failure can soon lead to success in life, though “success” is a state of mind.
But my thinking is, however. If you fall down, you get up and dust yourself off. And keep pushing forward. Despite the faults or failures.
However, just for today. I am learning to live in the moment. Although, my past behavior has demonstrated the perfectionist persona. I’m always open to learning new ways of attaining a financial goal.
I am learning from you my friend. Thank you 🙂
I am also convinced that I fall victim to situations that may not exist — I stated “may not” exist. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist either.
Living life [my opinion] is a mental, spiritual, and physical journey — we’re merely Pilgrims passing through. It’s also a tough really living life when you know something you experienced is right. Although, it may not appear the same with someone else.
I am encouraged by your wisdom, and will continue to follow. Take care, and be blessed.
Hey Kevin!
Glad you like the content. Couldn’t agree with you more; we’re passengers on this ride we call life. Sit back, relax, and see where it takes you.
I couldn’t have agreed more,
The worst mistake and risk anyone can make is not taking risks at all. If you try and fail, you’ll learn from it and then try again.
There is certainly nothing wrong with making mistakes provided you learn from it.
Thanks for sharing
Hi layla.. I also face the same problems as you do.. I also work as an admin and encounter lots of paperwork. However i always makes mistakes eventhough i work extra cautious and always back fired by my boss. I start to doubt myself and lost my confidence to do my job. I keep blame myself why i been so careless and always in fear. I hope someone could tell me what i should do to solve this problem. Thanks
I just got hired and I am training right now but I am one of those people who are scared to make mistakes, and because of this I am not getting any better! I grew up being able to laugh at every mistake I made, I wonder if this one reason why I tried to be perfectionist and so afraid to make mistake. But reading your article truly inspire me.
Just you seeing this is a big step. Beware of falling into the trap of now trying to perfect making mistakes. Watch out for any criticizing of yourself. Let it happen organically, and naturally. No rush. Have fun 🙂
Might be a little late to the party but thanks, Henri. The message is spot on. Sometimes (all the time) the best course of action is to, as Nike said, Just Do It. Don’t let the what ifs and potential problems stop you from anything.
Well put, Joel. One step at a time does it!
Great Article Henri, this was just what the universe ordered for me. I just finished writing my first draft for my book entitled How To Stressitless, Five Steps To Help You Manage Your Stress. I experienced fear and I am moving around it and getting things in place to launch my book party in February of 2021. I am taking one step at a time and working my plans. I also reference to some of your thoughts in my book from articles that I read throughout the years and credited you as the source.
It was no accident that I connected with you. It was a divined order in the universe. Keep Rocking Henri. Stay tune for more.
Myrtis Williams
South Carolina
So many times, people let the fear of what if hold them back. If you don’t take a risks and chance failing, then you will never know if you are capable. There’s not a better way to learn lessons than to fail from time to time. Great article with a lot of meaning behind it. -Ryan
Hey there Henri,
This is my first time messaging you and feel a little nervous.
I find it super easy to encourage other people to not be afraid of stepping up into what they want to do even if it means making mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable and great teaching tools. But when it comes to me moving into what I want, oh boy, is it tough. That perfectionism trait sure gets in the way. And it can be debilitating at times.
Putting you in the picture quickly: I, too, love writing. I want to start a blog, but I’m terrified of what people are going to think or say. I’m scared that everything I’ll put out into the world will be worthless or will sound ridiculous. Scared of being laughed at, I guess. The past voices in my head are a blasted menace.
Reading your post has certainly spoken volumes to me. You’re right, it’s about taking small steps and daring to step out into the world no matter what happens. I make sure to take at least one small step forwards into creating what I want each day. Some days I get quite a flow and manage several steps. And I do make sure I see my accomplishments no matter how small each time to remind myself I can do this and there’s really nothing to fear.
Thank you, Henri,
Very best wishes
Catie Taylor
Hey Catie,
Thanks for the comment!
The small steps are key, because they begin to show you that you don’t have to take your fears so seriously. You can instead begin to wonder: “Well, I’m afraid of doing this, but let’s see what happens if I do it anyway.”