Good Judgment Comes From Bad Experience…Experience Comes From Bad Judgment

Nobody particularly likes making mistakes, but let’s face it; we all do it – sometime every day!  The thing that’s really cool about making mistakes is that if you learn from them correctly, they will move you forward in your life.  Too many people today seem to be unwilling to put themselves out there for fear of making “the dreaded” mistake because too few people realize that by doing so, they allow themselves to benefit from an essential part of self improvement.  Forget about the possible guilt and regrets and focus instead on figuring out how to learn from them.

Research shows us that people who go through life afraid to make a mistake spend most of their lives doing absolutely nothing.   Why can’t we embrace the fact that there is more personal gain from making mistakes then from doing nothing in order to prevent them from sneaking up on us?

Sure, mistakes happen for a variety of reasons.  It’s what you do about it when they do happen that really matters, not the fact that you made a mistake.  Take the time to understand the underlying reason(s) the mistakes were made.  If it’s because you were too tired to think clearly, get more rest. If it’s because of a big gap in your leadership or interpersonal skills, hire a Professional coach.   If it’s because you were stressed out, work on ways of finding avenues to reduce your stress and find ways to learn how to relax (exercise, meditation, social interaction, etc.).

Making mistakes allows us to gain wisdom and rapidly accelerate self-improvement in our lives.  They are a platform that provides us with deeper and broader perspectives that enrich our personal growth and experiences and empower us to have improved judgment and develop higher levels of personal character.

Embrace your mistakes….they demonstrate your ability to take risks and enable you to achieve your goals and live your best life.  They are powerful tools in defining and getting clear about your intentions and to move forward with heightened awareness of your soul satisfying life purpose.

“Experience fails to teach when there is no desire to learn.” ~George Bernard Shaw

Every day is a school day……be a life learner and live YOUR life of purpose!

What's It Really All About?

Last week I wrote about choosing your mood and how we are all empowered to really choose how we think and respond to circumstances.  I found myself in need of taking stock of my own disposition this week when faced with the conflict of how I was spending my time.  As many of you have experienced the pain of starting your own businesses or witnessed friends and family as they have journeyed through launching their own businesses, it’s a daunting and unrelenting task.  We go into business with all of these ideologies about how it’s going to be so much better than working for “The Man” not truly understanding its unique challenges and the all consuming control it attempts to have over our lives.

As I was struggling to care for my sick child on Monday AND devote the time I needed and had committed to each day to working on growing my business, I found myself feeling very frustrated and conflicted.  On one hand, I am and will continue to be a good mother AND my daughter was sick and on the other hand, I felt an overwhelming sense of urgency to stay on task with the actions and intentions that I had set forth to purposefully advance my business each and every day.  When I was caring for my daughter, in the back of my mind my little inner-Gremlins were screaming at me “You need to be doing this or you need to be doing that if you’re EVER going to create a viable thriving business”.  As the day grew longer, the voices of the Gremlins grew louder and I was torn between what I thought I should be doing and what I was actually doing in the caring for of my daughter.  After all, she’s seventeen years old.  Shouldn’t she be able to take care of herself by now instead of attempting to return to the womb?  Whoa!!  When those questions starting ringing and screaming in my head is when I told myself I need to step back and do some serious evaluating of my present state of mind.

As I began to try to really understand the tsunami of feelings I was struggling with and how conflicted I felt it suddenly came to me like this great epiphany – my “AH-HA” moment.  The reason why I was feeling so disjointed and discombobulated was because my thoughts and my emotions were not in alignment with my core values.  I was allowing my inner-Gremlins to try to tempt me to place value on something over that of what was really most valuable.  The health and welfare of my children is paramount to ANYTHING else in my life and because I was allowing my thoughts and feelings to be driven by a grossly miss-aligned priority, I was internally thrown off kilter and living a day out of alignment with my values by allowing my inner voices to misguide me.  How often do you find yourself in similar situations and not realize that your internal discomfort and sense of dishevelment is because your actions and intentions are not in alignment with your core values?  I bet it happens more often than you realize…….think what positive change could come to you if you could live your life in alignment with your core values.  It starts by knowing exactly what your core values are.  Do you know yours? 

For a free core value assessment, go to: http://www.ethicalleadership.org/Self%20Guided%20Core%20Values%20Exercise.pdf.  Then, if you’d like to discuss your findings with someone who can help you get in alignment with your core values, I’d love to help.  ckmoore@AskTheQuestionNow.com