My great grandpa Mark played pro baseball in the 1920’s. He played short-stop, and at one time, he had one of the highest “error” rates around. His mistake rate was through the roof.
So for two generations, my family has been figuring out how to not make mistakes…
Thankfully, we now have two easy ways to avoid them:
- Never do anything. If we never move forward with the idea, at least we didn’t fail right? Stay off the field. The simplest option.
- Do things, but never show anyone. If you never show anyone, even if there was a mistake, did it really happen? Kinda like the tree crashing in the forest with nobody to hear it. Do things at home, in your journal, behind closed doors, and don’t show anyone, and it’s as if any mistake never happened.
Of course, the problem with these two, is while there’s no real mistake, we don’t make anything happen either. There’s no inspiration, there’s no ripple effect, there’s no change.
So, we come to a third option.
Do things, show people, and, factor in mistakes. Expect them even. Do your best, ship the work out, and, promise that once in a while, there’s going to be a mistake. Sometimes, it’ll even be a big one.
The problem that freezes us aren’t the mistakes themselves, the problem is in thinking that somehow we can do work without making them.
