I don’t like to be wrong.
I can remember the hot shame and ridicule from my school days of getting something wrong and the other kids thinking it was funny.
I didn’t recognize it as shame at the time… embarrassment maybe, or just feeling stupid, but I can see it more clearly now.
It’s the shame that makes you feel like you aren’t worthy, or won’t be loved because you aren’t enough, because you didn’t know, or because you made a mistake. And if we don’t ever find a reason to overcome it, then that shame can keep us small and haunt us for years.
If we don’t forgive ourselves for all of the times we didn’t know before, and all of the times we aren’t going to know in the future – we stay trapped in the shame. And we stay stuck.
But the truth is you are going to get it wrong.
And if you have let the shame of being wrong stop you from trying, then hopefully you learn that’s wrong too.
We can’t stop trying.
We have to have an opinion.
We have to put a stake in the ground.
We have to make decisions.
We have to step into the unknown.
And in order to do so, we have to know we will probably be wrong.
You’re going to get it wrong a lot more often than you’ll get it right, but after the first draft, or the first time, or the first wrong, you will start to find the path towards right.
And when you get it right, it feels good.
Just for today, let yourself be wrong and pretend like you might be right. Move forward and do it like a boss.
Being “right” will happen soon enough… but it will not happen at first.