Stuck in a revolving door, doomed to make the same mistakes again

Everyone has the right to make mistakes. 

In fact, history has proven time and time again that if we’re not screwing up, we’re not taking enough risks. 

But there’s a flip side to that coveted coin of achievement. Because the human soul can only take so much abuse. And if we keep missing the mark and making mistakes and getting rejected and losing the bets we place on our own talents, we might stop believing that we can trust ourselves to succeed. 

I’ve had periods of my life where it seems like nothing I do works. My noblest gestures backfire, my most earnest expressions go unnoticed and my most generous intentions go unappreciated. Everything around me is a reflection of how I’m a failure. 

It’s like I can’t win no matter what I do and I’m slowly fading away and there’s no way to stop it. It’s helplessness combined with hopelessness. And it’s not a pretty place to be. 

Because you start to question your own value in the world. 

What’s helpful, then, is first keeping things in perspective. 

Remembering that failure is okay when we know we’re on a long road. Remembering that failure teaches us key lessons about ourselves that we could not have learned any other way. 

And most importantly, resisting the urge to tie our opinion of ourselves to success and failure, and instead trusting that our value as people doesn’t rise and fall in lockstep with our latest achievement. 

Besides, it could be a lot worse. 

I have an actor friend who works on a network television show. Every time she makes a mistake, fifty people have to do their job all over again. Now that’s pressure. 

The point is, our psychological tendency to deceive ourselves about our own trustworthiness is insidious. 

And so, you have to take your precious moments of empowerment wherever you can. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say:

Come now, when you get tired of beating your head against a brick wall, haunting yourself with recollections of past mistakes, try aiming a little forgiveness inward. 

That will help move your story forward.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…  

When will you quit trying to make yourself into someone you don’t trust? 

LET ME SUGGEST THIS… 

For the list called, “99 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Even If You Aren’t One,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

Never the same speech twice. Customized for your audience. Impossible to walk away uninspired.

Now booking for 2017-2018.

Email to inquire about fees and availability. Watch clips of 

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