The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.
One of the hardest things I do is overcome my fear of making mistakes. If I made the slightest error growing up, there would be a full blown discussion on how to avoid every making said mistake again. People in my life pointed out if I dropped a spoon. Well, somehow I noticed but they felt a need to make sure I knew it. KavinCoach was astounded by my intense fear. He encountered many people that were afraid of making mistakes. What puzzled him was my intensity to the point that I would get sick over the slightest error. Oops of course were totally and completely unacceptable. This intensity made me very good working with computers since with a computer you can't put a space in the wrong place. The computers demand for absolutely perfection and zero tolerance to error is not new to me. KavinCoach spent many sessions helping me to reduce my anxiety at a perceived error. We had many more discussions after I integrated. The interesting thing was that after integration my anxiety actually went up in this area since I had a separate personality that dealt with all errors. She had no emotions so was never hurt by criticism. She expected perfection from herself and others. She made life miserable for my kids and coworkers. One place I worked called me "Dragon Lady" behind my back. Now, I am responsible for my behavior and I learned that mistakes from myself and others are usually 99% of the time fixable and if not fixable there is a work around. I am also accepting that mistakes, errors, and oops are part of the human condition. However, I still wouldn't want to hear my doctor say, "oops" when I am in surgery.
Added by mulderfan:
In AA, we say "Progress not perfection." and I love it!
Added by Laurel:
The original language in which the Bible was written defines perfection as being complete or finished. It's possible to do something imperfectly by the World's standard, and be perfect by God's standard.
4 comments:
I used to tell my students that a mistake is just a chance to learn, but like you, I was never that easy on myself.
Being brought up by two perfect people, who NEVER made a mistake, made perfection the only acceptable thing for me. Now I actually pity people who have to be perfect!
In AA, we say "Progress not perfection." and I love it!
(((mulderfan))) I love"Progress not perfection." I also encouraged others to accept mistakes then chastised myself for the same mistake. Working on being kind to myself. :)
The original language in which the Bible was written defines perfection as being complete or finished. It's possible to do something imperfectly by the World's standard, and be perfect by God's standard. Just a thought.
That is awesome. I am adding this comment to the post. Thanks.
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