Risk nothing
You risk everything
How can you test your boundaries being a spectator? How will you know how far you can go? You can’t, and you don’t.
You can’t avoid making mistakes; Staying safe is not as safe as you think.
It’s just not an option.
So I remind myself that the purpose of a mistake is to learn from it, not to sidestep an essential experience that can make you great - fixating on saying the wrong thing, not doing your due diligence, losing your shit or lacking discipline. There is an endless amount of missteps we are capable of subjecting ourselves to but beating ourselves up only serves to reinforce our insecurity and distract us from the present moment.
Reframing my mistakes as lessons my future self can be grateful for is a great way I can regain immediate control over my negative thoughts and feelings. I’m then able to redirect that energy toward positive thoughts and feelings.
What can make that difficult is when the people around you - family and friends aren’t as enlightened as you are and believe the bullshit about how mistakes are harmful. That can be a challenge and could sometimes destabilize you but stick with it even if you must put some distance between yourself and the bad influence.
The faster I can absorb the mistake and learn the lesson, the faster I can move on. There’s always going to be another situation, another opportunity, another chance to make better choices. And I want to get on to it pronto.
Learning from your mistakes is vital to living smarter. But it’s not enough to learn to act differently next time. The best way to learn from your mistakes is to learn why you made the mistake in the first place.
This is the art - ROAR
Recognize that failure is normal
Own it
Accept it
Reflect - Sit with it and extract the lesson
Be analytical but also let your gut and intuition guide you. And don’t let history repeat itself.
