342 Mistakes Are Some Of My Best Friends December 2017 Friday Week 2

Fantastic Fridays-#342  December 8 The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast Mistakes Are Some Of My Best Friends Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes” -Oscar Wilde It’s not that I love living in mistakes, but it’s that I appreciate myself more when making them. I find that the more I accept and find the joy through them, then the faster I move on from them. The funny thing about wisdom is it can’t really be relayed to you through words…yes, people can give you knowledge and we become wiser from it, but we really only gain wisdom by going through the problem. Like the which came first…the chicken or the egg philosophical debate…the same can be argued about experience and work. I remember after graduating college how hard it was to find a job because they wouldn’t hire you if you didn’t have the experience, but how were you supposed to get the experience if no one would hire you? We think that the pathway to success is this straight line. But it’s a befuddled mess of ups and downs, U-turns and little forward movement, back to more U-turns, and more ups and downs. I look at some of the people I admire for their creativity and success, and I see that a good portion haven’t had the normal line of progression that you’d think to make it where they currently are. And I don’t think it’s because they’re so unique, I think it’s more that they did what they wanted to. They studied things that interested them, and they were willing to take jobs or do things that didn’t seem in alignment with where they had their eyes set upon. And by doing things that may not have seemed in alignment with their path, they gained the experience in different industries or subjects that brought a unique perspective towards their work. We try to manipulate and control life so there’s less mystery and heart ache in our lives. We think that the unknown is a scary place, and that we must do whatever we can to predict our future as accurately as possible. But when we try to control too much of our lives, we miss out on the beautiful happenings along our pathway in life. We’re so focused on what it should be, rather than what it could be. And I’ve found that God always had a bigger plan for me, than I ever realized for myself. And usually understanding the mystery didn’t come before the action, it came after it. Understanding came from being willing to have my path diverted if need be, and to find meaning in that. In his book Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously, Osho said, “Don't try to understand life. Live it! Don't try to understand love. Move into love. Then you will know - and all that knowing will come out of your experiencing. The more you know, the more you know that much remains to be known.”  I’ve come to many great places in my life because I decided to call my mistakes friends. I decided to see them as good things rather than bad. I decided to find the peace, happiness, and joy in them while going through them. And I decided to truly experience my mistakes, not rush through them as fast as possible. The more we resist our mistakes, and the more we fight them and try to eliminate them…then the less we learn. Abraham Lincoln said two great quotes that I think help bring processing mistakes into better context: “You can tell the greatness of someone by what makes them angry.” An old Chinese proverb says it’s not that wise men can’t get angry, it’s that they won’t. And I think that’s because they see the meaning behind what mistakes can be. The second quote and one of my favorites by Lincoln…“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” So, are you going through your mistakes seeing them as ways to understand life better? Are you breathing through your mistakes, not finding anger because of them, but finding wisdom by going through them? And are you ok with making mistakes but never content in staying in them?  When we live reactively it can be easy to get upset at the strife mistakes seem to bring in our lives, but if we can step back and see the bigger picture…maybe there might be a better way in enjoying the pitfalls along the way…not just the good times. Today’s Personal Commitment:How different do you think your life would be if you called mistakes your friends? What if you welcomed mistakes with open arms, like you would welcome your good friends? I’m not saying that I want you to be constantly messing up and erring in life and never gaining progress…but we are so close to our lives we can’t see the growth that is happening as the change is usually small incremental daily changes. We don’t notice the changes until months or even years later. Think of the person working out daily and not seeing any change until one day they look in the mirror and all the sudden it seems like they lost 50 pounds overnight. It’s not that the change happened overnight, but it’s that the changes were so small they were hard to notice until one day you see the monumental change that has been taking place inch by inch, day by day. So, this month I’m going to ask you to curb your anger and upsetness with making mistakes and to embrace them and work to understand what you are learning from them. So, at the end of the night look back on your day and see how you handled the mistakes as they came. Were you frustrated because of them, or were you invigorated as it was a chance for you to puzzle solve because of them? Mistakes Are Some Of My Best Friends     Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247     Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide