Making Mistakes and Redefining Success

One of the most common reasons we don't set and achieve goals is our fear that we might make a mistake. We want to be guaranteed that we will succeed before we step out and take any risks. Yet in waiting for this elusive guarantee we overlook a basic truth: mistakes are the way we learn!

Studies of success, failure and learning have shown, over and over, that success does not breed success; failure breeds success. The chair of Apple Computers stated, I believe the overall quality of work improves when youngive people a chance to fail." Thomas Edison is reported to have said, after nearly 1,000 prototypes that didn't work, that he had so far discovered over 900 ways not to make a light bulb. His ultimate success, with the lightbulb and hundreds of other inventions, was based on hisnwillingness to go from failure to failure without losing his enthusiasm.

Edison isn't the only great "failure" to whom we can look for inspiration. R.H. Macy went broke fhe first seven times he tried the retail business. Martina Navratilova lost 21 of her first 24 matches against Chris Evert. And of course there's that outstanding failure, Babe Ruth, who struck out over 1,300 times. All people who made a lot of mistakes along the way.

In fact, getting it right the first time can inhibit creativity and success. We need those mistakes to help us shape and define what we truly mean by success. In 'The Leadership Challenge' by Kouzes and Posner, one corporate leader describes getting something right the first time. As he tells it, he skied all day and never fell down once. He was so elated that at the end of this great day he skied up to his instructor and told him about it. Much to his surprise, the instructor said, "Personally, I think you had a lousy day." Shocked, this captain of industry challenged the instructor: "What do you mean, lousy day? I thought the objective was to stand up on these boards, not fall down." The ski instructor looked him straight in the eye and said, " If you're not falling down, you're not learning."

Of course, in addition to our fear of making mistakes, there is the whole problem of an outcome-based definition of success. After all, shall we measure our lives, achievements and successes by what we have done, or bynwhat others think of us? One way of assuring that we give credit where it is due (to ourselves!) is by redefining success as taking action and doing that which we say we will do. Being authentic, setting our intention and taking action with integrity are within our control. Someone else's opinion of our work is not. It is far more satisfying to celebrate the successes within our control--for doing those things we said we'd do--than waiting for someone else's approval.

So start falling down. Make lots of mistakes. Give yourself credit for every fall, every bump and bruise, every time you get back up and take action with integrity. This is how we learn. These are our true successes. And when we do achieve those outcomes we wanted, they will be all the sweeter for we will know we earned them through our actions, our courage, and our will.