Mistakes

[sobrique]

Are you afraid of making a mistake?

Everyone does. I've caught myself doing it in the past - avoiding doing something, because I'm afraid of 'making a mistake'. Well, I hate to say it, but it's only in doing so that you learn and grow.

I caught myself worrying about mistakes I've made, people I've upset.
I found myself fearing doing so again, and worrying about things going wrong.

I promised myself I'd stop doing that. I'm not saying that one should be entirely care free. If you ignore the mistakes, they'll just happen again. If you deny them, you're doomed to repeat them. But it's also not worth overanalysing, and worrying about them.

You make a mistake, do what you can to make it right, think about what you could do to avoid it in future, and then put it behind you.

You plan for the future, and then leave it be. Checking a map book before driving somewhere new is a good idea. Paniccing that you're going to be late when you're caugh in traffic is wasted effort.

The other mistake I caught myself making was being afraid of doing something. Told myself there were risks that I wasn't prepared to take. Oddly, these were mostly in social situations. The geek instinct if you will - to avoid talking to people, and to stay clear of new social situations. Perhaps stemming from the school level ostracism. I've tried to avoid that too.

I was going to avoid that too. Caught myself doing it again a bit recently.

But if you don't try, you don't ever find out that you _can_ do something. If you learn to ride a bike, you wobble around, and probably fall off a few times. But you pick up the tricks, and after a while, it doesn't happen again. (Except when you're really very pissed).

Same's true of talking to people (even the pissed part). Some will cut you dead, or return scorn, but most won't.
In fact, it's better than that. Those who will scorn or react with derision are generally also not worth getting to know. Where most will forgive mistakes, and will react with compassion. And those are the people who are worth the effort of making a friend.

Comments

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

I am a perfectionist. I will often avoid doing something I know I can't do perfectly. This is a psychosomatic response to past stimuli.. Mostly some very cruel critical comments by teachers and peers over the years.

I've been getting better.. I've been telling myself that "My best" is good enough. I've been trying not to panic when I find a correction in my work, and getting really annoyed when Ican't do a job first time. I have found though that the

It doesn't stop me striving for perfection and being gutted when I don't get it:/. Because I know I can do better:)

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

I often find myself worrying about not being able to do everything asked of me. I often find it seriously demoralising to not do something perfect first time. I blame the majority of these feelings on overly critical peers and teachers.

I have though found that Temping has helped a lot. Because I don't HAVE to know everything to do a good job. It doens't stop the angst and the heartache i get when something is "wrong" or I can't finish something perfectly. But it is working out some of my perfection issues.

One thing it isn't stopping is the over analysing and "beating myself up" over things that aren't under my control. I still angst over "do people like me?" "am I any good" and so on and so forth. I don't think that will ever truely go away:/

[crashbarrier.livejournal.com]

sorry about the double post but for some reason my puter made out it had eaten the post but now i've re-logged on i see both posts exist.. *confused*

[warmage.livejournal.com]

I think these are good guidelines to follow in becoming a more reasonable individual :)

mistake

[erisreg.livejournal.com]

the only mistakes that count are the ones you can't fix,(i.e if they kill you , etc) everything else is learning,..o.0

[jorune.livejournal.com]

A useful post, I shall have more to say on this in the future.

[malal.livejournal.com]

It's also important to remember that from the other side of the coin, if someone else makes a mistake, it's very unlikely to be the end of the world. It happens. I get very, very pissed off by people ripping into me for my mistakes, I make them, I'm only human, I accept them, try to correct them & move on. Having a real go at me for it is actually very counter productive.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

There's stuff that matters, and there's stuff that doesn't.
Life is learning the difference.
This applies both to the mistakes you make, and to people ripping the piss for something silly.