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Screwing up on purpose - testing boundaries
Screwing Up
On Purpose- Testing Boundaries
Everyone is afraid of failure and equally so, everybody is afraid of
being embarrassed. Sometimes, without doing it on purpose, we set ourselves up
for such assumptions of failure and embarrassment through poor planning or the
lack of testing boundaries. What this translates to is that we all make or set
a standard or level of assumptions. Most will agree that assumptions are risky
and dictate our future as well as our own actions.
We may sabotage ourselves before we ever take the first step towards
success. For many, that is just too high of a risk to take and makes them
believe they aren’t good enough to try it so they don’t. It is that simple. They
don’t even try it. Thus, when faced with a difficult challenge or task, we must
test these boundaries set up to help us become better and learn from our
mistakes.
The late Robert Gunther in the Harvard
Business Review in 2006 said that: True deliberate mistakes are expected, on
the basis of current assumptions, to fail and not be worth the cost of the
experiment…. But if such a mistake unexpectedly succeeds… [it] creates
opportunities for profitable learning. In other words: if we fail, we learn
something. If we succeed, our long-shot risk actually paid off. By reframing
tough tasks as “deliberate mistakes” we can help remove all of the pressure
that can keep us frozen, all while learning something along the way.
Most deliberate mistakes, as expected,
don’t work out. your instinct, therefore, should be to avoid them or to minimize
the impact of such approach. On the other hand, you may be missing a great
opportunity and miss out on what you may learn from such actions. When
fundamental assumptions are wrong, people can achieve success more quickly by
deliberately making errors than by considering only data that support the
assumptions. It’s a hands-on approach that can be controlled to a large degree
and because it was an intentional mistake, the investment was low and less
costly as well as risky.
The downside of failure wasn’t that bad. Even if you took
into consideration all the dynamics involved in the failure, would have banked
crucial knowledge of what caused it or what the gaps were. Here are some hints
to make safer mistakes.
Scrutinize your assumptions
– Our innermost assumptions are the fuel for deliberate mistakes. What
are the rules you follow without thinking? Do you avoid public speaking
opportunities or leadership roles? Pick one out and think about something you
could do to put it to the test – in which the downside is low and what you will
learn is potentially very valuable. For example, if you tend to avoid
public speaking, you could volunteer to do a talk on a favorite subject at your
local library or coffee shop, and invite a friendly audience, as opposed to
trying a TED talk. This is a process we commonly call ‘breaking the ice’ and it
works well.
Be prepared to fail — Don’t
put too much stake in the outcome. You probably won’t succeed. But as long as
the cost is low and you are prepared, it won’t hurt a bit.
Do your best – This is the hard part. When you
don’t expect to succeed at something, your self-protective instincts can affect
your effort. If you don’t do your best, you effectively guarantee that you
won’t succeed – and you give yourself a flawed data set to measure against.
But, more importantly, you reduce the lessons you learn even if you fail. So,
you must, must, must do your very best to succeed.
Compare reality to assumptions
– If you fail, if the mistake proceeds as expected, you will have a list of
lessons that you gained from the experience. Which of your assumptions were
correct, and which didn’t hold up? What surprised you? Use this list to
plan your next development steps, so that the next time you venture into this
experience, you will have a much better chance to succeed.
Deliberate mistakes are an underutilized tool in our
personal growth. They are not natural and don’t arise by default. But, if
approached the right way, they can propel us forward and provide us crucial
information to guide our future development.
To paraphrase Henry Ford, if you
believe you can’t do something, you’re always right.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
The power of Forgiveness
There are people, good and upstanding ‘help-your-neighbor-kind-of-people’
who go to church where the pastor thinks homosexual behavior is a sin and
accept that as a fact but don’t go out of their way to repeat what was said. They
are not ignoring that fact, they just chose not to negatively act on that fact.
Instead, they sought the positivity in such situations and brought with them
peace, compassion and kindness showing everyone the kind of love Jesus showed
when he walked amongst us.
As a writer, I respect those views and accept the fact that
homosexuality is a sin. However, no sin is worse than the other and we all sin.
Who are we to choose which sin is worse than the other?
Hence, we acknowledge two things: God is love and love is God.
How or who we love comes from our heart and soul. That is another fact. We are
not living in a perfect world and the way we choose to live our livestyle is
based on our ability to make choices. God gave us the free will to make
choices.
As a writer, I have no idea what your personal views are about
the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender communities. As a Christian, I know
the power of forgiveness and love – that is something we don’t exercise often
enough and we need to do more of it so we know that God is listening to us and
shows His presence inside our hearts.
Whether the topic is same-sex marriage or just about the
general issues related to the LGBT relationships, I cannot speak for anyone but
myself but feel compelled to write about those relationships that I have
personally seen and witness with family and close friends exercising their
free-will and choosing partners or spouses of the same sex.
I do not condemn them, I have no reason to resent or be
offended by them as their choices appear to be based on their own love and
needs in life. These people, young and old, do not frustrate me or make me
angry – they have done nothing to me to fear them or be against them like some
act with their hate-crimes.
I have personally seen
how happy they are and give them the benefit of the doubt and reserve my own
judgment on their choices. I think God would want me to do that. We sometimes
underestimate the power of love and who are we to choose what is wrong or right
for someone else? More importantly, what about the power of forgiveness?
This kind of talk should not be on the news but it is. Perhaps
it is mainstream media’s way to indict people for choices not in line with
their own morality or lifestyles.
However, I take this as another step that shows how much the
media is out of touch with current events related to relationships. In other
words, I believe the media is trying to wrongfully influence us or persuade us
to twist our thoughts towards their opinions and standards. We all know how
reliable the news is on the power of persuasion.
I don’t think that LGBT bashing is called for and that leads
me to write about the suffering caused by such harassment or bullying by those
who don’t take the time to learn more about the LGBT communities and their
lifestyle as well as contributions to society.
As a person, I have found love in every person who has ties to
the LGBT lifestyle. I have witnessed same-sex marriages making two people happy
and relationships that show that two people of the same gender can live in
harmony and love each other just like the rest of us. There is no differential
there – they are all people who love each other.
If you’re a conservative in America, you’re pretty used to
knowing that your favorite celebrities will regularly disagree with you on
everything from abortion to LGBT matters to climate change and that is okay as
long as you are not persuaded to follow their ideology without freely doing so
by investing the time to learn more about the matter.
Everybody gets offended over everything today – it is time to
let go of their beliefs and focus on our own. Per independent research studies
by the Pew
Research Center, as of 2016, 37 percent of adults in this country still
oppose same-sex marriage, while 55 percent approve. That means over a third of
Americans are still against same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, among Christians, 54 percent thought that
homosexuality should be accepted in society, per a 2014 Pew study—which means
that up to 46 percent thought it shouldn’t be. Among Protestants, 44 percent
believe that homosexuality should be discouraged in society.
A Gallup pointed out in 2015, fewer than 4 percent of
Americans identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender). In
contrast, Americans tend to think a whopping 23 percent of the population is
LGBT.
That’s not shocking, given how much media and entertainment go
out of their way to highlight such couples. Ultimately, same-sex marriage is legal,
until everyone in America agrees that same-sex marriage is OK—or at least is
afraid to say otherwise.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
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