Each week my 10 year old daughter has been bringing home a “quote book” from school.  Her teacher assigns the class an inspirational quote and then the students need to write what they think the quote means.  There is also a spot for a parent response for what I think the quote means.  The quote above was this week’s quote.  And as I was writing my response for the assignment it got me thinking even more about how much perfection slows us down.

Here is my response to the quote:  It may be frustrating to have to take the time to do something over again, but it is a GREAT opportunity to do better and improve.  And not all the time do you get a chance to redo something, so see it as a blessing to try again and do better.

How many times have you been upset that you messed up?  Beaten yourself up because you didn’t do something right?   Or, not even tried to do something because you were afraid to fail?  OK – I will be the first to raise my hand to admit that I have done ALL of those things.

How much richer would our lives be if we gave ourselves permission to fail?  There is nothing shameful in failing.  In fact, it would be a shame to not try at all just for the fear of losing.  It is perfectly OK to fail – in fact let’s welcome it – because it puts us that much closer to meeting the goal – making things right.  I know this is a common used example – so forgive me – but I think it fits perfectly.  It took Thomas Edison 1000 tries before he successfully invented the light bulb – that was 999 times of starting over and on that 1000 time he got it RIGHT!  Thank you Thomas Edison for starting over and not giving up!

It is perfectly OK to start over for it brings us that much closer to getting it right.  There you have it – I just gave you (and myself) permission to fail – so go ahead – give it a try 🙂

Cheering you on!!