The successful habit of making mistakes
The fact that you are making mistakes at least indicates the fact that you are in the process, are creating – Activity. As my dear old Dad used to say – you cant steer a parked car. (of course my dear old Dad never said that – some motivational speaker said that, over and over again. My dear old Dad was more likely to say – you are the laziest son I have ever had)
Nevertheless only activity can produce success. taking and thinking about ‘a plan is good. But unless there is activity there will never be an outcome. A result.
By the way this has to be the best (as in most complex ) mindmap I have seen for displaying, everything, I mean everything you need to know about Internet Marketing.
MindMapOfUltimateWoe from Andy Jenkins Blog.
Study it . It is a thing of beauty.
Back to the post at hand.
Only activity in the end will produce results. Only results produce success. And if in doubt do something, any activity will produce some result. Good or bad. Inactivity produces nothing.
Ken Robinson has a great video on creativity being weaned out of us through education
If you are just starting a business, you may fall into the ‘college/school’ trap of only doing things that produce ‘successful’ results, and become frozen by the thought of failure.(the pass fail syndrome) If that is the case – redefine, in your mind, a successful outcome. The New Definition: – all outcomes that come from directed effort are successful outcomes.
No effort, no outcome, that is not allowable. All outcomes from directed effort count. And are important.
Success is merely a series of wrong steps continuously learned from,that eventually produces your desired result. Success.
John Reese always says you learn from activity. And no matter where your business is right now, as long as your are prepared to put in continued activity – this is the ‘worst’ your business is going to ever be.
If you have a business that’s moving along, you may become frightened to change anything or try anything new in case you disturb the little ‘success your business is producing.
You cannot get different results from the same effort. You cannot get more money from something that gives less money. So you have to change the business to produce a new result. Initially the change may produce less money or no money and you feel this is an unsuccessful step and stop doing anything else.
You cannot get more from the same, and you cannot ever, ever, ever expect to be right the first time or the second time or the third time. Success is produced from a series of steps, most of which appear to be mistakes but are just learning steps. If you don’t learn the wrong way, you cannot find the right way.
To create a successful business requires effort, constant effort. And being willing to learn from that constant efort.’Mistakes’ are irrelevant,and actually dont exist. Rename your ‘mistakes’- your steps.You do not incur mistakes, you only have steps towards your desired outcome
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam.
Winston Churchill
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Hi there,
You are absolutely right! No effort – no outcome.. and leads to NO SUCCESS! Everything you do, even if it turns out to be not the right step, points you in the right direction. How would you know, that this particular step you took, wasn’t the right one, if you wouldn’t have taken it?
Funny to see, I wrote a post yesterday about making mistakes and being thankful for them called “Mistake, I thank you my friend”. Mistakes are the best teachers you can have, so don’t be afraid to make them.
You often hear people saying “take massive action” or who could forget the all too familiar Nike slogan “just do it.” Too many people try to make things perfect before going forward, which is another type of stalemate.
As stated above, just getting started is the first step in doing something better!
As somebody who used to get stuck in analysis paralysis, this is so true.
I also managed to turn procrastination into an art form – in fact, I used to joke, I even put off my procrastinating until tomorrow.
Fortunately, I’ve seen the error of my ways now and am learning so much more by just getting stuck in, and if you make mistakes, so be it – as long as you learn from them, all’s well.
I agree with your comment ‘Everything you do, even if it turns out to be not the right step, points you in the right direction’. Sometimes we learn best by trial and error so taking risks is necessary in order to progress. It’s completely true that inactivity produces nothing, a fact that ensures this option is never the best one. The combination of positive intentions and decisive action will more than likely herald successful results, Even if this is not the case, there is generally something positive to be gained from the experience, something which is clearly untrue of inactivity.
Without mistakes, I doubt anyone would ever be successful. Michael Jordan would not be the best basketball player in the world without the number of missed shots he had taken.
Man, this is SO true. You hit the nail squarely on the head.
The idea that a failure is actually productive is something that’s lost on my wife. For her my failures are a reason to stop what I’m trying and move on to something else, usually in the form of “why don’t you get a real job?”
Any advice on you’d explain this concept to a spouse and get him/her to understand?
You learn from doing, its as simple as that.
While we perhaps can increase our chances of success at times, its still largely a trial and error game.
My favorite quote or story on making mistakes is the ole Thomas Edison one regarding failing 10,000 times before finally getting the light bulb to work. Each mistake ruled something out and got him one step closer to the objective.