The Power of Messing Up
We love a perfect score, a best in class, a success story. But reality is messy. That entrepreneur with the “overnight success” has been at it for 20 years. That best-selling author was first a failed musician. That “perfect marriage” has weathered a few serious rough patches.
Messing up is, in fact, an essential component of success. Innovative companies invest in risky ideas, understanding that many of them will fail. Many highly successful people have made spectacular messes. Certainly, in everyday life, all the little mini-fails are a big part of the learning process. The allure of perfection is strong, but it’s actually the messy mess-ups that lead us to great things.
Beware the GOAT.
Trying to be the Greatest of All Time is the curse of overachievers everywhere. It will almost certainly not happen, and it will probably make you miserable. Striving for achievement leaves you focusing so hard on the goal that you miss the unexpected opportunities and exciting connections that come along. Instead, show up with an open mind, put in solid work, connect with interesting people, and follow where that leads. As your high school coach may have told you, you miss every shot you don’t take. Don't let your desire to be great make you too afraid to try.
If you’re not falling, you’re not learning.
I learned to ski when I was 16, amid a group of friends who’d been skiing since they could walk. It was an awkward situation, and I was prepared to feel embarrassed. The first day out, my instructor started off the lesson by saying, “Remember, if you’re not falling, you’re not learning.” With one sentence, he erased my fear. He gave me permission to fail by setting the expectation that I would fall and that falling would be productive. Reframing each fall as a step forward is something I’ve carried into my life. To do something well, you have to do it badly first.
Mistakes are the pathway to discovery.
When my son was small, I apologized to him for something I’d forgotten to do, and he replied, “It’s ok, Mommy, mistakes are the pathway to discovery!” After momentarily wondering if I’d given birth to the next Dalai Lama, I realized it was a phrase he’d learned from his kindergarten teacher. There will be mistakes and you will learn from them. Maybe those mistakes will even lead you somewhere unknown and fabulous. Like Reese’s peanut butter cups. Or jazz. As Miles Davis put it, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none."
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Where can you embrace the mess? Is there a situation where you can take things slightly less seriously, experiment more, and worry less about the end goal? A challenge you’re facing where you can reframe the setbacks as progress? Or a place where happy accidents may lead to cool new things?
Wishing you a happy spring and a happy mess.