Clear James wrote about the use of behavioral science to control your habits and improve your health. His guide, transform your habits, has been downloaded more than 80,000 times. This post originally appeared on his blog.
Generally, we are incredibly hard on ourselves when it comes to making important decisions in life.
- If our first five relationships end in rupture, we believe that we are destined to be alone forever.
- If we go to school, get a degree, and spend years training for work that we end up hating, we feel like a failure for not all inclusive.
- If we have a dream to write a book or from a nonprofit or create something of value and we stumble on the first try, we say that we are not cut out for this .
In cases like these, when we try to do something that is complex and multifaceted, I think is wrong is actually a sign that you are doing something good.
Therefore ...
First choice vs optimal choice
For some reason, we often expect our first choice for be the optimal choice. However, it is actually quite normal for your first attempt to be correct or wrong. This is especially true of the major decisions we make in life.
For example ...
- Finding the right person to marry. Consider the first person you dated. Does this person would have been the best choice for your life partner? Go even further and imagine the first person you had a crush on. Finding a partner is complicated and you expect to get it right on the first try is unreasonable. It is rare that the first would be a .
- The choice of your career. What is the probability that your 22 year old self could choose optimal career that is best for you at 40? Or 30? Or even 25 years old? Consider how you learned about yourself since. There is a lot of change and growth happens during life. There is no reason to believe that the work of your life is to be determined easily when you graduate.
- Starting a Business. It is unlikely that your first business idea will be your best. It probably will not even be good. This is the reality of entrepreneurship. (My first business idea has lost $ 1,400. #winning)
Regarding complex issues such as determining the values you want in a partner or selecting the path of your career your first attempt will rarely lead to the optimal solution.
5 lessons err
To err is not as bad as we do to be. I made many mistakes and I discovered five key lessons from my experiences.
1. The choices seem poor in decline is an indication of growth, not self or intelligence
When you look back on your choices it a year ago, you should always expect to find a few decisions that seem stupid now because it means you're becoming.
If you do not live in the security zone where you know you can not mess up, then you will never release your true potential. If you know enough about something to make the optimal decision on the first try, then you are not challenging yourself.
2. Since your first choice is likely to be wrong, the best thing you can do is start
The faster you learn to be wrong the sooner you can find out what is right. For complex situations such as relationships or entrepreneurship, you literally start before you feel ready, because it is impossible for anyone to be really ready.
The best way to learn is to start practicing. 1
3. Break down topics that are too big to control into smaller tasks that can be controlled
I can not watch any business and tell you what to do. Entrepreneurship is too big a subject. But I can look at any website and tell you how to optimize it for building an email list because this subject is small enough for me to develop a certain level of expertise. If you want to learn how to do better specific first choice, then play in a smaller arena.
As Neils Bohr, physicist Nobel laureate, said, "An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field."
4. the time to trust your instinct when you have the knowledge or experience necessary to safeguard
you can trust you to take clear decisions in areas where you already have a expertise. for everything else, the only way to find out what works is to adopt a philosophy of experimentation.
5. the fact that the failure will occur is not an excuse to expect failure
There is no reason to be depressed or give up just because you're going to make some bad choices. Even more important, you must try your best to each both because it is the effort and practice leading the learning process. They are essential, even if you fail.
Know that no other single choice is doomed to failure, but the fact that from time to time is the cost you have to pay if you want to be. Expect to win and play like it from the start.
Your first choice is rarely the best choice. Do it now, stop judging yourself, and begin to grow.
You do not get what you do not ask
Sources
- I think it is also one of the reasons why history repeats itself. There are many situations simply be experienced to be understood. Even if you have read the opinion of all the experts in one area, the only way forward in your own life is to experiment. Of course, not all experiences are going to plan and, therefore, the same mistakes are made over and over again that every person goes through the process of finding their own way.