Mistakes are how we learn.
Topics which we discuss today are: Objectivity, Actualisation and Integration and the paradox of Perfection
Just Be Like This Today: “Today I am prepared to make mistakes”
This is a daily invitation to grant yourself permission to drop all your other nagging ‘Musts’ and ‘Shoulds’ about personal development, wellness and living a virtuous life. Just enjoy this one cup of Living Wisdom, just choose this one thing and sit with it today.
Make Mistakes…
You know how you have always heard the pithy aphorism “Hindsight is 20/20” taken to mean we always know better what should have happened after the event?
With nothing to lose, armchair critics always look at a situation after all the facts are in and comment about what they would have done, or how simple it would have been to avoid the trouble that was caused by people making decisions without the benefit of hindsight. It goes like this.
The real question is how often do you treat yourself like this?
How often do you expect yourself to have known something you could not have known? The simple truth is that either you genuinely did not, or could not have, known better or, that you did not have the presence of mind to fully consider the consequences your lack of critical thinking and forethought were going to have.
Sometimes the real mistake was not around what you did, but that you were a little mindless or distracted while you were doing it. That can be its own powerful lesson.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
In the absence of certainty, making mistakes is how you learn. In the absence of mindfulness, making mistakes is how you learn that lesson too. This in essence is objectivity.
Expecting yourself to get things right ‘first time’ can be the worst kind of mistake, because you keep focusing on what you tried and failed at, instead of pointing the finger at the real problem, which was your level of expectation all along. Sometimes your expectation of how cause and effect work is what was flawed, and sometimes your expectation that you should miraculously have known the lesson before the lesson is the only real mistake.
If you keep doing this, you develop the habit of negative and recursive self-talk which always centres on the two most counterproductive emotions of guilt and shame.
Guilt is the voice that says “I did something wrong.” Shame is the voice that says “I am something wrong.”
My biggest argument against Guilt & Shame is how unhelpful they are. If they did anything constructive at all, I would say “Go for it!” —but they don’t. They do nothing except keep you anxious and ruminating and focusing on your worth as a person, instead of what you could be learning from your past, and working out how to lead yourself forward.
You never really get taught the skills and duties of self-leadership and self-parenting that someone who went through your life experiences and conditioning would absolutely and essentially require to process and grow. You simply were not equipped with the awareness or tools to know what better might have looked like. And now you are back here again, making small fierce promises and resolutions, speaking to yourself in the unwise, unloving voices of judgement and fear you were taught as a young person.
You keep thinking that the aim of loosing an arrow in archery is to perfectly hit the bullseye of the target. The real aim is to see how the wind is blowing, how the bow is pulling left or right and how your sights are aligned. Every arrow loosed is feedback for how we need to adjust our aim for the next shot. The aim is to refine your aim.
Perfection is a false ideal, a mirage in a desert you can never reach. Paradoxically that does not mean that you should not aim for perfection, only that you should not expect to hit that target. Every shot, wide or true, is simply how you refine your stance for your next attempt. Anything else is a bullshit ideal from a storybook. Check out the companion article below on the importance of ‘Stance’.
HOW TO UPGRADE YOUR PRACTICE
The only way to grow is to accept the lessons.
Mistakes are lessons and they are how you move forward. The real challenge is three-fold:
Firstly, ask yourself “If I had my time again, how would you make better choices?”
And then when challenges or heavy feelings arrive, as they always will, rather than pithy resolutions and unsustainable promises, ask yourself “How quickly can I put down the drama—how quickly can I lean against the voice of habit, of anxious vigilance and hold space for real generosity and compassion and speak to myself in the voice of leadership and grace that the moment always needs?”
Then you say to yourself “As soon as I know better, I do better. I start from where I am, with what I have.”
Your life is nothing but a series of moments. What we make of our life, is what we make of ourselves. And what we make of ourselves is always determined by how we treat ourselves in the moment.
The best comedians are the ones who learned how to bomb and who accept that as a necessary and valuable part of their apprenticeship. The same goes for any true master of their craft. You have to play, which implicitly means that you have to allow for mistakes. Mistakes are how you know you are in growth territory.
You are who you repeatedly choose to be.
MIS-TAKES
Live your life like an actor...
—aiming to embody, most authentically,
the brought-to-life character of your best and truest future-self.
If you get it 'wrong',
(and you will),
own it, and ask for another 'take'.
Authenticity, paradoxically,
requires lots of practice.
We reach for perfection,
we become ourselves
one mis-take at a time.
How little yesterday matters today. Let tomorrow take care of itself.
Just be like this today: “Today I am allowing my mistakes. ”
If you need guidance on deepening and integrating these practices, book a free session with me, it will be an investment in yourself.
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This was the perfect message for me today!