THE HOLISTIC LAWYER

Do you wait until all of your “ducks are in a row” before acting? Are you something of a perfectionist? If so, I have a suggestion to bring more success and happiness into your life – start making more mistakes!

Recently I decided to reduce my costly telephone bills by switching to one of the internet phone companies (which shall remain nameless). The cost was about one third of what I was paying for three lines and, according to the ads, was ridiculously easy to install. I checked out the information on it, everything looked good and so we signed up.

That’s when the nightmare began. The first thing I realized was that it was a lot harder to install than I thought. The second, was that every call to the company for assistance was transferred to someone who, after a 25 minute wait, was unable to help me.

I decided to transfer back to my original carrier, only to be learn that once a phone line is transferred to a computer line, it is gone forever. Gone forever! The business line I have had for 20 years! The one on our website and all of our stationery. It was more than I could bear. I looked around at my cluttered office, feeling like my head was going to explode. I had to de-clutter, immediately.

So I did. I cleaned up all the paperwork, got it all in order and neat as a pin. The pieces began to fall into place to resolve my dilemma. Using a bit of creativity and the assistance of my techie son (nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it!), I found a way to reclaim my business line, interface it with several other “regular” phone lines for backup and still keep the savings of the lower phone price.
My son told me I could have thought all this out before I acted and he’s right. But I have a new motto: Get ready, fire, aim!

The way of the successful person is always the way of action. Naturally you do all you can to educate yourself before you take action. But there is a difference between informing yourself and analysis paralysis.

Have you ever heard someone tell you how they came up with a great idea, only to have someone else actually do it and make a bundle, years later? Why didn’t they try to make it? My guess is that they wanted everything to be perfect before they made their move. They wanted all of their ducks in a row.

Funny thing about ducks; they really do get into a row. For about one minute. Then, the wind blows or someone walks by and they scatter everywhere.

Same with life. Things may actually be “perfect” for a minute or two. Then a problem occurs or something goes wrong and all hell breaks loose

People who are perfectionists act out of fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of failure or perhaps fear of success. By waiting until everything is perfect, they take themselves out of the running, either by taking too long to get something done or by never doing it at all.

To use one of my favorite examples of a successful person who was not a perfectionist, Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he came up with a successful idea for the lightbulb. When people asked him how he could keep going after failing so many times he said, “I didn’t fail. I just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”

Successful people “feel the fear and do it anyway,” as Susan Jeffers put it, because they believe in themselves. They feel, “It will work because I will make it work.” And so it does.

Babe Ruth, the Home Run King for 39 years, was also the strikeout king. He had more home runs and more strikeouts, than any other player.

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, said “To increase your success you must double your rate of failure.” Because, as hockey player Wayne Gretzky put it, you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

If you want to take your life to a higher level, try this approach: Action, feedback, correction. Action, feedback, correction. Continue until your goal is reached. Don’t take mistakes personally; they are simply how we learn.

I once heard a story about a woman working in the film industry who noticed something very significant. She was one of the people who “click” the slate that says “Take One, Take Two,” and so on. Whenever the scene needed to be redone, they called it a “mis-take.” She incorporated this into her life and when something she tried didn’t work, she just called it a “mis-take.” And did another take.

Can you imagine if an actor had to re-do a scene and began to moan, “Oh, I’m no good. I’m a failure. I don’t deserve to be an actor!” We would think they were crazy; yet this is what many of us do in our everyday lives.

When I decided to make the move and change phone lines, I made a mis-take in selecting the particular service I chose. I got the feedback pretty quickly after one of the 25 minute waits for help. But instead of beating myself up for being so dumb, I decided that it was going to work because I would make it work. And I found a way to accomplish what I wanted despite all the setbacks. I struck out, then I hit a home run.

If you are happy with the way your life is going, then you do not need to do anything different. But if you hunger for a better, happier, more exciting life than you currently have, then decide what you do want, learn about it the best way you can as quickly as you can and then get ready, fire, aim! Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up.

© 2006 Mindy L. Hitchcock