That was the advice Professor William Strunk gave to his English students many years ago. He was telling them to let their voices be heard. Don’t keep quiet for fear of making a mistake. Mispronouncing a word is not a big deal, and if you keep quiet you will never learn to pronounce it correctly.
That quote reminds me of babies learning to walk. It’s a complicated task, but they want to do it, and they’re not worried about constant criticism. They’re not worried about doing things wrong. Falling down is just part of the process…it’s not a sign of failure. I believe that as parents we need to provide that kind of learning environment for our children, and that as adults we need to provide that kind of learning environment for ourselves.
So, when I noticed this past week that the layout of this blog was garbled in Internet Explorer (I use Firefox), I was forced to practice what I preach. I wasn’t happy about the problem, but I tracked it down and corrected it. That didn’t mean the layout would work well in other browsers, so I hired someone to clean up my coding. I care about my blogs, but I care even more about the excitement of learning new things and sharing them with others. So I’m not going to spoil the fun by worrying about mistakes. If there are occasional “oopsies”, it’s just part of lifelong learning.
What about you? What new things are you trying? Is fear of criticism getting in your way?
This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments section.
Photo by Ben McLeod via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Related posts: It’s a Magical World, Lifelong Learning, Living Every, Every Minute, Loving What You Do
This blog posts weekly, on Mondays.
Making mistakes is part of the learning process. Actually we learn more from our mistakes and people who fear mistakes don’t acheive much. Perfection comes out of mistakes.
Jean, this is an encouraging post. Write- ups like this encourages people to forge ahead.
Once we have a positive mindset we can acheive anything in life. A positive mind will have no fear of criticisms.
Abu.
Thanks for coming by and commenting, Abu. I enjoy your site, too.
When you can laugh at your mistakes, that’s when you know you’re in a good place. I can’t always laugh at them that day, or even in the same week, but eventually I always find the lesson.
Thanks for coming by! For a long time when I made a mistake I would tell myself, “So you made a fool of yourself again. You’ve done it so many times by now, one more time won’t make any difference.” When we get to the place where we don’t agonize over mistakes, we free up a lot of energy for more important things.
That is such a cute kid!
You know, Jean, I can’t say that I’m really trying anything new right now. I’m pretty much in my comfort zone. Your post has challenged me to think about that!
Bob,
I’ll bet with small children at home you are learning new things. And, in my humble opinion, building up warm family memories is one of the best uses of your time right now.
🙂 I love your blog.
Some great points here Jean!
That photo image is priceless! I agree with Professor Strunk’s advice. Yet, many people clam up. Society often criticizes and conditions people to become self-conscious. Its only through realizing this and also taking steps to rise above judgment that you can build self-confidence and say what you really want to more comfortably.
DITTO Liara Covert’s comments above. This happened to me. I never gave an opinion– judgement actually 🙁 unless someone else said it first.