If You Fear Mistakes, You Fear Learning
We are conditioned by fear and loss aversion to avoid situations where we might make a mistake (i.e. learn). Many look to experts to guide their every move, failing to realize those people became experts through their own willingness to experience a failure and learn from it.
The next time you think you can't learn something, just try. Start small. Make mistakes. Learn. The best educators don't want to be your crutch, but they want to see you join them on a journey of discovery.
Ask any expert or successful person and they will usually have many, many stories of failure and what they learned from it. The key is, don't make the same mistakes twice.
For thoughts on this as it relates to learning about cryptocurrency, see: How Do You Teach Experience? What Will Your Cryptocurrency Story Be?
Meta Thought
What do you think of short-form content like this? I share it on Facebook or Twitter often, but sometimes don't post it on Steemit also. That's probably silly.
Random Thought
How valuable are "How are you today?" chats on steemit.chat and discord? I get maybe 5 or so a day with people who (mostly) genuinely want to build relationship with me. Others are just looking for upvotes. I usually reply with a link to this post because I don't spend my time in chats like that. This morning I was also thinking about how the real relationships I want to build don't spend much time on small talk. They share big, world-changing ideas with passion. That's where they spend their time.
You very right @lukestokes. When we fear to make miatakes, we never learn. I was brought up in a society where failure is a stigma, when you fail, you are judge as a dull kid. It really affected my growing up, cos for fear of failing making a mistake, i will never dare to try. But that changed when i grew older and understood that when i make mistakes, i get better trying again. I made mistakes building my career, cost me my first job(as a result of the stigma that comes with making mistakes in my society). I almost gave up for fear.
Am glad i did not allow fear rule. Today i am doing very well in my career and a role model to many. My mistakes taught me better, i am more safety oriented than most of my colleagues.
I take safety classes in my company and one thing i do teach is,
""never be scared to make mistakes, but always be quick to correct them. Learn from them and make them build you to become better"
Well, short content, i would say is good. The only thing i fear, is if it wont be abused....like post some 2-3 words content.
Interesting motivating content @lukestoke. Really liked it.
I was mostly raised by "older" people; my parents were near 40 when I was born and many of their friends would more naturally have been the age of grandparents. But that also meant I grew up around a lot of wisdom.
There was a retired friend of my fathers who taught me the game of golf as a teenager, but he also talked a lot about life... and your post reminded me of something he often used to say:
"He who hasn't made a mistake, usually hasn't made ANYthing."
As a kid, it sounded sort of odd to me, but with the hindsight of years, it has come to be quite meaningful.
Of course, then there's the popular business myth (which I have never been able to verify) that the popular cleaner "Formula 409" is thus named because the previous 408 didn't do as well as the developers were hoping for. Yeah, that one is more of a flip joke... but still illustrates the point.
I value them, oddly enough. For the past 60 days or so, I have tossed in a @zappl post every 8-10 posts or so-- and the level of engagement has been impressive; sometimes garnering upwards of 100 comments. I think they can be excellent conversation/discussion starters if formed as a question, and we take a little time to specifically shape them for engagement. Which, of course, is my particular passion with Steemit.
Short form also invites a new audience that might otherwise give our long form content the TL;DR rejection.
Meaningful connections and relationship building IS the backbone of social content platforms... we're both "career" bloggers; I know for me it's the long comments with "meat on their bones" that make the effort worthwhile, not the "nice post, please vote me's"
Steemit is sort of unique in that every one of the 400-some people I follow have something interesting to offer... and yet it's almost impossible for me to keep up with them. By comparison, following 400 people on Facebook barely makes a blip in my morning. Which tells me this place has a certain magic and potential to truly change the world that we just haven't seen before.
Sorry, there I went again, blogging on your blog...
I absolutely love your blogging on my blog. :)
Thanks! Because I'm a bit of a numbers/data nerd, I track pretty much everything... on any given day, I seem to write more "long form" comments than I write actual posts.
Incidentally, you helped inspire last night's post (about what a world we all want to live in actually LOOKS like). Bringing that up because that's yet another brilliant thing about Steemit as a social platform; there's this great "cross pollination" of ideas and inspiration here that I have just not seen elsewhere.
Fail Forward :-)
Upvoted your comment as if it was a standalone post. Great content.
I also enjoy some of the short thought posts. You dont always have time to sit and read every post. Finding an insightful short post can be a breathe of fresh air.
I always teach my employees the same thing about mistakes. You learn more from mistakes than doing everything right.
Hi. I agree with you. Regards
Not being afraid to fail is a vote of confidence in yourself because it says that you believe in your inherent worth and potential. Come what may, up market, down market, you believe you have substance. You are a hodler in yourself.
People who are afraid to fail don't have a belief in their inherent value. They believe what they have been able to collect is maybe all the value their lives have and that they may not be able to make more of it.
I struggle with this. I have not made a post yet because I don't feel like I have anything of value to offer. I've wanted to start a business, but the money I've saved was so hard earned that I don't see myself being and therefore creating enough value to ever recoop it, let alone be successful.
I've tried to change this or go against my nature, but it's not just a question of fear. It's a question of feeling insubstantial and hollow.
I like the short form sometimes. It's more subjectively interactive than a story or news article which are valuable but invite a 'good story' or debate type response.
I love this:
Based on the quality of this comment, I think you do have value to bring. Go set your avatar image, a blog background image, and a short description. Publish your first post, even if it's to talk about your concerns about writing your first post (or starting a business). Be vulnerable and true. Share who you are with the world and discover what the world shares back.
Short substantial content can be awesome sometimes especially for those people who had short attention span. I like reading long article if it mostly sustain my interest. Mistake is part of life,the most important thing is we learn from it and not making the same mistakes again. Thanks @lukestokes
I can completely relate. I tell people I am at a point in life where if I am not uncomfortable I am not doing something right lol! It’s amazing how much fear I notice and when I sit with it and send it love it disapates much more quickly! Thanks for sharing
Precisely!.... We need to bomb keeping in mind the end goal to succeed. Since with each come up short, you gain from the experience what doesn't work and how to settle it.
Each fruitful individual went trough the way of disappointment before they found the way of accomplishment.
It's a piece of life. We gain from our missteps since the day we are conceived.
I think this short substance is constantly cool,
since you don't really require gigantic substance to demonstrate a point. Any length of substance can incite sentiments and thoughts!..Carry on dear ...
The question about the short content form is interesting, as i d love to post more of these on steemit. Or maybe its the other way around: i feel like i should write longer posts for steemit and thats sometimes keeping me from posting at all.
i liked your short content post, so i might give it a try to use those here as well. I feel encouraged by yours, so: thank you :-)
I see so many people who are afraid to even try to do things because they're so afraid they won't be good at them right off the bat. Fear of failure holds so many people back and in general it seems to get a little more extreme with each new generation.
Great words of advice. One of my favorite sayings, that I tell our photography students all the time, is: If you're not failing, your not trying hard enough. Failure is scary, but it helps us learn.
Exactly! We have to fail in order to succeed. Because with each fail, you learn from the experience what doesn't work and how to fix it. Every successful person went trough the path of failure before they found the path of success. It's part of life. We learn from our mistakes since the day we are born.
I think this short content is always cool, because you don't necessarily need huge content to prove a point. Any length of content can provoke opinions and ideas!