Marvellous Mistakes

Ever expect yourself to be perfect or to get it right every time?  Are you ever hard on yourself when you don't achieve the desired result or even worse make a mistake?  Often, I like most of us, tend to be my own worst critic.  Following a so called 'failure' I can easily slip into the habit of critical negative self talk. This is never helpful.  Two truths that have really helped me be mindful not to slip into the habit of critical or negative talk both to myself and others are 

• Perfection is an impossible goal for anybody 
• We all make so called 'mistakes' or decisions that have not worked out as we would have hoped - it is how we learn and grow.  

Perfection is an impossible goal for anybody
So often we expect ourselves to be perfect and think we need to wait until we are perfect before we can feel good about who we are and our lives.  When we understand that perfection is an impossible goal for anyone we can stop exhausting ourselves with trying to achieve it.  It may be tempting to go to the other extreme and say 'well if I can't get it perfect or be perfect, why even try!  

​Understanding that perfection is impossible does not mean we do not try to do our best. It is important to give our best effort to things that come up; we all know the difference between a good effort and a foolish slap dash effort.   
As long as we have given whatever situation arises our best effort (considering our available resources at the time)  despite the end result we can be happy with ourselves.   Often when we have done a particular task or dealt with a certain situation we can see both, things  that have gone well and things that we could have done a little differently.  We can learn from our experiences when we ask ourselves

• What went well?
• What did not go so well
• What will id do differently next time? How can I do a better best next time?

Once we have our best effort it is equally important to let go of the expectation of it turning out as we would have hoped, especially the impossible goal of getting it perfect..  Obstacles beyond our control hinder so much of what we set out to achieve.  "That can happen, and does" as a friend of mine says cheerfully.  The one thing that is in our control is how we respond to both the situation and the outcome.  When we have done our best we can be happy and accept the outcome as an opportunity for learning and growth. 

We all make so called 'mistakes' they allow us to  learn and grow.  
So often we look at our so called 'mistakes' and think of ourselves as a failure somehow.  Rather than do this it is much more helpful to recognise and celebrate the effort you put in, regardless of the result.  As I said above we are not in control of the outcome - life is full of ups and downs.  We  all make mistakes and things often don't go as we had planned.  What is most helpful is to not get into that negative, critical self talk and instead see it as a learning opportunity.  When we accept we all make mistakes we are able to forgive ourselves and others for these and are free to accept our and others imperfections and do our best with whatever comes up.  When I think about it some of my so called mistakes have led me to exactly the place I need to be.  Things like failing to get into medicine, get that perfect job, have a family easily, get the tap steps right and be a model mother, have been perfect opportunities to develop humility and compassion for both myself and others.
Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.  We all make mistakes, they help us learn and grow.