Everyone Makes Mistakes

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

-Oscar Wilde

“No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress,

you are still ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.”

-Tony Robbins

“I was born to make mistakes, not to fake perfection.”

-Drake

“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”

-Confucius

Mistakes help us grow. We learn from our mistakes. It’s better to try and fail than never to try at all.

The sayings and quotations about mistakes are seemingly endless. We normalize them. We say it’s okay. We say we encourage them.

So what continues to make us so fearful of making them?

I am exhibit A for this. As I worked to breathe life into Sprout Wellness Collaborative, I made countless mistakes. And there’s no question that I’ve learned and grown from them. Yet I still get stuck far too often in a state of decision crisis. I weigh my options. I research endlessly. I waste countless hours. Because I’m so worried about making the “wrong” decision.

Here’s the thing. There really isn’t a wrong decision. Sometimes a mistake has consequences. Case in point – I currently own three website domains because of an error. But this error wasn’t a catastrophe, and really, it’s been relatively inexpensive and pretty easy to fix. In contrast, I’ll never get back the HOURS I spent researching a platform for scheduling, billing, etc. And this issue was quickly solved with a 2 week free trial. Yes, you read that right. I lost HOURS agonizing when I could have just signed up for a free trial, tested it, and chosen something different if it didn’t work.

If you read this blog post, you know how many decisions teachers make, and it’s probably fair to say that some of these decisions will feel like “mistakes.” Reframing these decisions, offering grace to ourselves and others for errors, will likely remain a work in progress for many of us. I’m adding some inspirational reminders to my workspace (see above), and tipping my hat to teachers everywhere. Just imagine the seismic shift if we alleviate the pressure, especially in the context of 1500 decisions a day…