My ego watches closely for patterns and is adamant I should not make the same mistake twice.
My self talk around it is admonishing and terribly unkind to the point that I will trap myself into not wanting to try.
I’ve just recently noticed I’m not alone here.
It was a pattern that was lurking in the shadows and I was unconscious of the grip it had on me, until my life fell apart.
It was difficult to start putting it back together because of the underlying beliefs and judgements I held about repeating mistakes.
I didn’t want to repeat the patterns and I hadn’t processed all of the lessons.
Turns out, I can process lessons forever.
At some point we have to try again, and sooner is better.
By repeating Zig Ziglars words in my head it helped put my ego in the back seat so I could start. If you don’t start you don’t have anywhere to go.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you can do it better”. – Zig Ziglar
I’m learning that anytime you get ego in the backseat life becomes a lot more interesting and showing up for life helps us to figure it out faster.
I started to wonder what qualified as a mistake and how I determined it was a mistake.
I learned that I was defining mistakes by the results I was getting.
If I got a similar result to the last time, I defined it as a repeated mistake and then consider myself stupid for not learning it the first time, and worry about other people thinking the same thing.
Once I figured that part out I started looking for ways I could get different results.
I started to notice the results that showed me what parts were working.
Staying open to what works, and letting go of what doesn’t work takes all of the pressure off repeating mistakes.
Seth Godin says to always be testing.
It took me a long time to figure out this was what he was talking about.
“Is this working?” has become the mantra in my head and it’s been a lot more helpful than the negative self talk I had happening before.