You can become more confident and add to your store of wisdom by learning from your mistakes. In fact, making mistakes is one of the ways to gain confidence.
Internal Mail
This involves looking at all the messages we have internalized throughout the years telling us what we should, could, can, and cannot do.
There is a certain inevitability that participants focus on the messages that refer to things they want to change, like “You need to have a secure job,” “Girls don’t do that kind of work” or “You’ll never amount to anything.”
Instead, think about the messages in your head that have helped you — those that motivate and inspire you and you’d like to pass onto others.
Significant Others
Much of the internal mail that pops up uninvited comes from the people who raised us: parents, family, guardians and teachers. It won’t all be of the positive variety, but if you stop to think for a while you can find a few sayings or thoughts that throughout the years have served you well.
I specifically remember a piece of wisdom my father gave me, and I’ve repeated it often when coaching. I had just left school and made a particularly unwise choice about which college to attend, despite the advice offered to me. After one term, I returned home with my tail between my legs.
Within the year I went on to study at a great university and all was well. But at the time, there were issues such as money and changing courses, and the prospect of ever being able to resolve them seeming to be impossible. I felt that I had made a real mess of my life!
Then my dad took me aside and said, “Well, you’ve made a mistake, and everyone has to make their own mistakes. The clever thing is not to make the same mistake twice.”
The Path to Wisdom?
In later years I came to realize my father’s advice had served me well; it had erased the fear of making a mistake! And while I can’t say that I have never made the same mistake twice, I know that making mistakes leads to wisdom and better decision-making skills for the future.
As a coach and trainer, I often work with people who are stuck in unhappy situations, relationships, jobs and locations, but are so worried about making the wrong decision that they choose not to make any decision at all. They are paralyzed by the fear of getting it wrong.
Get it Wrong!
So how do you learn? How do you gain confidence? The same way have you have learned anything in life; you weren’t born with all your qualities and skills in place, you needed to do something to acquire them and I imagine you didn’t do everything perfectly first time.
Like learning to walk, for instance. Human beings don’t arrive in this world with fully developed walking skills — we needed to be allowed to learn.
If you get an opportunity, watch a small child learning to walk. They frequently fall over, get up and start again. But without any awareness of not having done it perfectly first time, they persevere.
As we get older most of us lose this confidence. We stay crawling, afraid of looking silly, of failing and of doing the wrong thing. We miss out on so much of what life can offer us.
Review Your Past
Think of all the skills and qualities you have acquired throughout your lifetime. You learned how to drive because someone taught you, you watched other people driving, and finally, you took a test.
You might have had to take it several times, you may have crashed the gears, and you probably stalled once or twice at a junction. But for most of us, the inconvenience of not driving outweighs the fear of failure, so we plough on until we get what we need — a driver’s license.
Are there areas of your life where your fear of getting it wrong or making a mistake is holding you back? Maybe you want a new job but think to yourself, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
Maybe you want a better relationship but are fearful of tackling the issues in your present one or actively seeking a new one. It seems easier to stay not happy rather than risk losing what you have, but you’re still toddling through your life instead of striding ahead!
Walk (or even run!)
Some tips to help you on your way:
- Owning up to making mistakes can be immensely liberating. If you get it wrong, say so. In most cases this won’t be the end of the world.
- Make a list of everything you have learned in life.
- Imagine if you had a second, third, even fourth life to live. What would you choose to be doing? Would you pursue an unspoken dream of becoming a ballerina? There are dance classes for every age!
- Think back to your internal mail messages. Some should be deleted, but there will be some worth keeping and acting upon. Decide on yours and write it inside your diary, or somewhere that you’ll see often, and go for it!
- And now think about what you would be doing this month if you knew that making a mistake was not the end of the world, but actually contributes to your learning and development, making you be the best you can possibly be!
Read more by Jane Woods at www.changingpeople.co.uk