This list could go on forever, but the point is that our culture teaches us that failing is bad. It teaches us that smart, successful people always do things right. Therefore, most people have instilled in them a crippling sense of fear that they will perform their task wrong. That typically means one of two things happen. Either the fear of failure cripples one into inactivity and nothing productive happens, or instead of stepping out on a limb to try something great the subject of this fear just puts out mediocre work that he knows will be “good enough”.
This is all wrong. Absolutely, totally, simply wrong. We have to fail! It’s part of who we are. If we aren’t failing, we aren’t living. Let’s take a look at some of the people who have helped to shape the world as we know it. People who also had their own fair share of screw-ups.
What kind of person will you choose to be? Will you be paralyzed by fear? Will you just follow the crowd to do what’s “good enough” and let mediocrity be your motto? Or will you make the deliberate choice to put yourself out there and to fall flat on your face? And then do it again, and again, and again, as long as it’s necessary to rise to the top and be your true self.
If you keep messing up you’re probably doing something right. Don’t get down on yourself and don’t let the weight of the world convince you to settle for anything less than what you’re capable of attaining. As C.S Lewis once said, “failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” Let your failures be your finger posts and not your fetters that you may go on to achieve greatness!