Growing up in the United States, taught by the public educational system, I automatically tend to play it safe. In an educational system run like a manufacturing line -everyone got treated the same- teachers did not have the time to acknowledge free thinkers. Those students who questioned the lessons, or the way they were taught, were labeled disruptive. And their answers, if not the textbook answers, were marked as wrong, or mistakes. Like Natasha Bedingfield says in her song ‘Unwritten’, “I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines. We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way.” My thoughts exactly!
As young children we made mistakes all the time, but we LEARNED from those mistakes. The adults who excel have either re-embraced the idea that mistakes are not bad, or they were lucky and did not succumb to conditioning. They are not afraid to learn and try new things, to push themselves into situations which are not comfortable, and others notice them. They are the ideal employees, who do not hesitate to take on new challenges where others would balk or say it was not in their job description!
More importantly, not being afraid to make mistakes is the first step to innovation, because if you are REALLY pushing the envelope, working on the bleeding edge, or blazing a new trail, most of your ideas will not work as expected. However, if you carefully evaluate those mistakes you WILL learn something you can apply to your next try, and you will be far ahead of those who play it safe.
Innovators will always have work because most businesses realize that innovation is a large part of staying competitive. So go ahead, I dare you to make mistakes! Push yourself. Learn how to innovate.
April 11th, 2010 at 12:21 AM
Interesting, never thought of it like that.