I really enjoyed this post by Dan Breslau, on “how to make mistakes.” I especially enjoyed his question, “What would you do if you had no fear of making mistakes?” What a powerful question!

I thought this topic is especially pertinent considering that in a recent poll, the top 3 fears that were cited by most Mine Your Resources readers were:

• I’m worried I’ll be out of my depth and I won’t have the skills and knowledge to do those things
• I’m scared of committing in case it’s the wrong decision
• I’m scared I’ll start and then not finish it

Common theme: I’m scared I’ll mess up, make mistakes or fail!

So here’s my biggest tip on dealing with mistakes, and rehabilitating yourself from perfectionism:

Cultivate curiosity

Most of the time, when we make a mistake, or see someone else making a mistake, our automatic reaction is to start doing judgment and blame – we tell ourselves off, beat ourselves up about it, and we might even give someone else a hard time if we see them make a mistake. And this only has the effect of triggering our stress response, which causes our thinking to become more blinkered, rigid and risky – not a great place to try to clean up your “mess” from!

In the moment, we forget that “mistakes” are just information and feedback from the real world, letting us know how things are in the real world, and telling us what’s working and what’s not working, what the blocks and obstacles to progress are, and even tipping you off on opportunities to solve problems and meet needs that other people might have. Mistakes are a treasure-trove of resources! And we forget that many “mistakes” can actually turn out to be blessings – they can be the very things that lead you in the new direction that turns out to be way better than you’d previously conceived.

What is curiosity?

Most dictionaries will define curiosity as something like “a state in which you want to learn more about something.” But for me, curiosity is more than that – it’s about being comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing, whilst at the same time being motivated to explore and discover more. As soon as you think you know something with certainty, you’re no longer wanting to learn more about it, and you’re no longer curious.

When we respond to a situation with curiosity, there’s a sense of not knowing it all, and so we go in with an innocent, open mind and an intention to learn more – and this enables us to extract the learnings and use the “mess” to create something valuable.

When other people judge us or try to push a view on us, we all naturally push back – and this makes us more polarized and less likely to change our views. When we’re curious, we’re not judging other people or closing the conversation, and so they respond by being more open, responsive and collaborative with us. And then we can apply all our minds and work together to solve the problems and fill the gaps.

I love what Einstein said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning… Never lose a holy curiosity.”

“Holy curiosity”… I like that!

So here’s how to cultivate holy curiosity:

1.) When you notice something isn’t working, tilt your head to the side, smile quietly to yourself, and say, “How fascinating…” Our mind and bodies are so intimately interconnected that even  just doing this ritual with your body will change the way you’re thinking. And if doing this makes you laugh, then all the better! (I got this tip from the wonderful Ben Zander!)

2.) Question everything. Here are some great questions:

• “What’s fascinating about this situation?”
• ”What’s the story I’m telling myself about this situation? And is that true?”
• How would I know if my assumptions about this situation weren’t true? And how would I know if that wasn’t true?”
• ”I wonder what positive intention could have motivated that person’s behaviour?”
• ”In what context could this thing that’s happened be a really good thing?”

3.) Regularly place yourself in unfamiliar situations, or with unfamiliar people. You’ll give yourself the opportunity to be exposed to ideas and views that you’ve not been exposed to before, which will give you real-life evidence to challenge your certainties – and open the way for curiosity.

4.) Look for the funny and reward yourself with laughter
Sometimes we’ve had a bad experience with mistakes – one where the situation gave us a really bad feeling at the time. And then the next time we make a mistake, we expect to get the bad feeling again, and that’s part of the reason why we so badly want to avoid making mistakes – because we want to avoid the bad feelings that we’ve previously experienced alongside mistakes. But you can train yourself out of this expectation by rewarding yourself with a good feeling after a mistake, and laughter is a great way to create a good feeling.

So ask yourself, “What’s funny about this?” When you laugh, you breathe more deeply, you get yourself out of the stress response, and you release endorphins into your system, which make you feel good. Laughing opens up both your mind and your heart and restores the quality of your thinking. And when you practice laughing at messes and mistakes, you’ll give yourself a positive intrinsic reward that will eventually train you into automatically assuming that mistakes are good experiences. And by the way, mimicking the physical act of laughter, without having found a funny reason for laughing, has the same effect!

So I’m curious: what are your thoughts on the value of curiosity? And what are your ideas for cultivating curiosity in your life?

Photo by pb031

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