Mistakes. To some, that word might as well be included in the list of swear words. There are so many people who are afraid of making mistakes, that even just thinking about it can conjure up feelings of anxiousness, hesitancy, and stress. But why? Good question! Let me tell you the answer. It’s because these people look at mistakes as failures, and no one ever wants to fail – at anything.

Well I’m suggesting that you should not be one of these people if you want to live a life of excellence. In fact, you should make more mistakes!

Do the negative emotions above explain how you feel about mistakes? They used to for me. But then I learned something about what mistakes really are that changed the way I look at them and has increased my self-confidence and made it easier for me to live a life of excellence:

Mistakes are not failures, they are learning opportunities.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but do you really believe it? It’s true; a mistake is nothing more than an opportunity to learn something new and useful. Whatever you did that didn’t bring about the results you wanted was not the way it should be done in the future. It’s that simple. Thomas Edison was one of the most successful inventors who ever lived, and he also probably made more mistakes than most people who have ever lived as well! It’s well known now that he went through over 1,0000 attempts at inventing an effective light bulb before he finally figured it out. And look how big of an impact of an impact that has had on the world! Also considering that Thomas Edison invented many other things, who knows how many mistakes he made while trying to get those to work!

Mistakes are good! The more mistakes you make, the more you learn about why something didn’t work the way you thought it would, and closer you’ll be to finding a solution that will work. The more mistakes you make, the better you’ll perform in the future and the better decisions you’ll make in the future in related situations because of everything you have learned from the mistakes you made in the past.

Now don’t confuse what I’m saying. I do not intend that you should go out and purposefully make mistakes when you know a way to do something correctly. You aren’t likely to learn anything from that. That’s called stupidity, and I’m obviously not recommending that you act stupidly. After all, you are living a life of excellence – of perfect imperfection. However, I am saying that you should stop being afraid of doing something new or different because you think you might make a mistake. You probably will, and that’s okay! You will learn from it and be better off in the future because of it if you do!

I have a theory that many of the most successful people in the world, are those who have made many, many, many more mistakes than everyone else. So go out and try new things. Go beyond your comfort zone and do what you want to do, whether or not you think you’ll make mistakes. When you do make a mistake, learn from it and then try again. Once you stop making mistakes in that new endeavor, step out of your comfort zone again and be ready to make more mistakes so you can keep growing, learning, and improving yourself and your life. I know it may sounds crazy, but the more mistakes you make, the more successful you’ll be.

Now, fellow mistake-makers,… get out there and LEED!

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