“As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect. Not every action will produce the desired results. Not every action will work.  Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.”- Jack Canfield

We are all afraid of something and at the root of this fear is our fundamental belief that we can’t handle whatever it is that comes our way.  It is a lack of trust in ourselves AND it is also a mechanism whereby we are kept safe.  It is the flight or fight syndrome.

We are afraid to step forward in case we do it wrong. In case we get embarrassed or ridiculed. In case we get abandoned or rejected.  These are primary impulses caused by fear. It is a fundamental belief that being wrong is humiliating and harmful to our being. But there is another way to look at it.

Failure is nothing more than a wrong choice.

The fear of making mistakes can prevent you from trying something new or moving out of your so-called ‘comfort’ zone, that is more often than not, your ‘dis-comfort’ zone; that tense, uncertain place where the anxiety and frustrations of life reside.

The word ‘mistake’ strikes fear into many people’s minds and shuts down any possibility of considering that this is simply a bump in the road.

Fear is an enormous opportunity to learn, to grow and to move beyond the limitations of where you are now

You can’t grow if you don’t allow yourself to make mistakes.  The trick is always to focus on what you learned from it, and hopefully not make the same mistake again.

We spend too much time agonizing over saying the wrong things, doing the wrong things, making the wrong choices or decisions. Instead, try this one powerful little word that I’ve learned to love “NEXT!”

NEXT is simply that.  Whatever didn’t work is gone, finished with, and what’s next is the question that comes up.

Many times the thing we call ‘mistakes’ are not really mistakes at all.  They are strategies that didn’t work.  Actions we took that had a different outcome from the ones we had predicted.  Thomas Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Failures are feedback for what’s not working.  The only response is NEXT.

When you face the fear of making mistakes, and see them for what they truly are, learned experiences, then you look forward to finding out what you can do differently.

When you make a mistake SMILE.  You just learned something.

When you make a mistake don’t beat yourself up.  You just received a wonderful opportunity to do something differently.

Next time you make a mistake feel energized and motivated to work harder to find another solution. You have the chance to do something different.

Mistakes are all about attitude.

Can you move past the things that were not right, and look forward to the creation of things that are right for you?

Jack Welch in his book“WINNING” said, “I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.”

Fail your way to success.

It’s the greatest opportunity in the world when we fail at something.  What other way are we going to find out that this is not what we wanted!