Celebrate Your Mistakes

Some time in your life there is no doubt that you have made a mistake. Mistakes often happen as a result of a lack of knowledge or preparation.

The problem with mistakes is that we are often no good at handling them. We might see ourselves as perfect beings that should have had the "intelligence" or foresight to see our problems coming.

Wherever this idea comes from this concept is simply not true. You have to fail to succeed, many times in fact. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will succeed.

Blair Singer said this of his presentations, "When we give a presentation there are three presentations in the mix. There is the presentation we prepared, the one we delivered and the one we rewrite on our way home."

When we feel like we've just blown a sales presentation, a speaking engagement, or some other situation, we have to stop that negative energy.

The following are three ideas to help reprogram yourself after a perceived failure:

1. Think of three things that did work. Focus on the positives to keep your energy up.

2. Celebrate these things with a celebration gesture (fist pump, high five, after party) that anchors the success.

3. Override any worry or anticipation of doom with the celebration gesture. Link yourself to memories of your own success. Chalk the mistakes up to learning experiences.

A mistake or failure is simply the purveyor of knowledge. Solve the problem and prepare for next time. Now your fear of committing the same mistake should be eliminated.

If you are finding that fear of mistakes are incapacitating you, then you should challenge yourself to collect mistakes. Seriously, go out looking for failure intentionally.

If you plan to fail then a failure is a success. You may also find that it is actually harder to fail than you expect.

Once you've learned how to fail (through acclimation) then you should never fear it again. By downplaying the importance of a mistake, they will be less of a deterrent on your road to success!

For more on dealing with mistakes as well as practice techniques and a tangible chart to track your progress please refer to our Eight Sales and Marketing Steps to Financial Freedom training kit.

 
 
"What do you do when someone says no to you? It's exactly the opposite of dealing with success. If somebody were to say, 'Look, we really like you, but we don't like your product. Don't come around here again,' you walk away feeling defeated. This can happen. 


What you say to yourself in the first minute or so is very critical. So the little voice mastery technique for that one is the exact opposite of what you do to deal with success. 

 Don't attribute the problem to yourself personally. 

I'm not saying you're not going to take it personally, because that's hard not to do. But what's easier to do is to say, 'Obviously, I was not aware of the other circumstances or other products that they were looking at so, while I'm responsible, it's not all because of me.'

The thing you don't want to say to yourself is, 'There's something wrong with me,' or 'I'm not cut out for this. I knew this wasn't going to work.' If you hear yourself saying those things, say 'Stop!' enough times that you stop seeing it that way. Look, it doesn't matter if it's true. You have to learn to control your little voice. So you attribute it to outside sources. 

Secondly, when faced with adversity, say to yourself, 'This is an isolated incident, which has no effect on the rest of the week,' as opposed to, 'The rest of my day is ruined. The whole week is going to be like this.' You've got to turn around and isolate the incident. Do not allow it to become protracted beyond that moment. Even say to yourself, 'I've got a new call to make. This is a new page it's over and done with." 

For more on dealing with adversity and 20 more life changing techniques please refer to Blair Singer's book, Little Voice Mastery.