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March, 2006
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN 1549-893X

Welcome to Leadership Hand™, a monthly e-newsletter
focusing on the softer side of leadership
to increase your effectiveness more quickly and
enjoyably with bottom-line results.

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1. Making (Essential) Mistakes

What if every mistake you made were necessary? What if every mistake you've made and every mistake you will make were in fact essential to achieving your goals and helping you get what you want?

Some people take mistakes in stride, no matter where they make them-in business, in their career, with their significant others, with respect to their health, within their family, or even when they're having fun. Others easily accept mistakes as natural in certain domains--and not in others! And then there are those who get snagged on thoughts about what they wished they'd done instead of making that rotten mistake.

Like me.

Let me tell you my story. I made my mistake months before I participated in a two-day off-site meeting involving more than 50 people. My mistake wasn't obvious when the meeting started. In fact, it didn't show up until a five-minute slice of time arose when a team needed some information I should have had--and didn't. Did others contribute to this lack? Yes, but I was the lead. All I could think of was "I should have done this, I should have done that" until I was berating myself with "shoulds".

When you engage in "shoulds" (assuming you were not intending harm), you are making an assessment that there is a clear right and wrong. That you could have acted differently. Maybe you could have. But if you "should" in this way you are missing the gifts in making mistakes and creating unnecessary pain for yourself.

Gifts in making mistakes? Yes, and their fruits are many. They

  • represent our ability to exercise choice--something to be celebrated,
  • provide us with information about what we want or don't want,
  • give us greater clarity,
  • enable us to learn what might work better,
  • allow us and others to exercise our creativity in the resolution,
  • make us human to ourselves and others,
  • teach us to trust others to help us, and
  • best of all, they often give us a really great story to tell!

So, how do you learn to embrace mistakes?

  1. You shift from the assessment that there is (or was) a clear right or wrong
  2. You shift from viewing the mistake as a discrete event to a point among many in the flow of life.

If you are someone who can look back and see how things have unfolded and how things have usually worked out for the best--i.e., use your 20/20 spiritual hindsight--you can begin to cultivate spiritual foresight when you learn to embrace your mistakes. In my particular instance, the biggests gift I received was watching one of the team members say "no problem, we'll make assumptions based on what we have and go from there." What?! You mean my mistake didn't stop the show? What a relief! And many times mistakes don't. They provide an opportunity for creativity to arise--our own or that of others around us--leading to even better solutions as a result.

So, what if you could embrace the view that any mistake you've made was essential to your living the fullest life you can dream of? What if that mistake or making mistakes enables you to have even more joy and happiness? And finally, what if it really wasn't a mistake but simply an experience in living?

Here's to making (Essential) Mistakes,

Beth Hand

© Copyright 2007, Beth Hand. Beth Hand, MBA helps leaders increase their effectiveness and satisfaction, now and for the future. She can be reached at (+1) 703.820.8074 or via her website www.leadershiphand.com.

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