Mistakes Are Not Final, Unless You Allow Them to Be!

As a society, we have steered so far away from the fact that mistakes help us to learn and grow, we reject anything that does not embody perfection.  This has caused a serious case of posing and appearances, which is putting us in danger of no longer making forward progress as a society. Our need for constant approval is not helping us to thrive, but rather it is stunting our growth. Think about it, how many babies would ever crawl if they acted the way we do as adults?  How many babies would ever walk?

You have to love the tenacity and determination of an infant that is learning how to become mobile.  I remember watching my one-year-old, sometimes screaming in frustration, as he was determined to learn how to crawl so that he could keep up with his big brothers and sisters. When crawling did not help him to keep up, he quickly figured out how to walk, and when walking was not fast enough, he learned to run. If babies had the motor skills, size, and strength to become Olympic athletes, no one else would ever win. Why?  Babies do not give up! They come ready to give 200% of the effort they need to achieve their goals.

However, this means they are prepared for a lot of falling and other mishaps along the path of learning.  Falling is not pleasant, however, this has never stopped a baby from getting back up and trying again. So I must question, why are we so concerned with how many times we “fail” as adults?  Somehow, between the time we were babies, and the time we became adults, we lost the identity that says, “I can do anything I want to. I may fall 200 times, but eventually, I will walk, I will run, I will jump, and I will even learn how to do a cartwheel”!  Our enthusiasm for knowing one day we will walk has gone away.

Imagine if we could interview a baby right after they learned how to walk steadily. I could only imagine that they would tell us that they learned a lesson from every mistake.  Every mistake made while learning to walk was an opportunity to make a new mistake that could be corrected. How they lived to make their next mistake because they knew that they would get that much closer to learning how to walk like a pro.  There are quite a few things that we as a society can learn from infants and toddlers. They are the true go-getters of the world!