Making Mistakes

Life is all about fulfilment - about having desires and achieving them. And yet so many of us fall short. So many of us stop trying because we are afraid to fail. Or we aim low because we think it is more realistic and then fall short of that because we fall out of love with the lesser dream.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. I attended a motivational course, then was invited to attend a three day Train the Trainer course. After this I was invited to speak to the MD about a book keeping position that he thought I might be able to help with, which is strange because other than being quite good at numbers and detail, I have no book keeping skills whatsoever. So I took this interest as a desire to lend me a helping hand in getting out of my situation and went to speak with him just over a week ago, where we ended up talking about my skills as a training support and documentation provider. He was interested. The company need to revise their training manuals and he thought he may be able to make use of my skills.

The long and the short of it is, I was offered a 3 week work trial, which considering that I thought there might be a position open at the end of the trial, I suggested that we formalise with the job centre. He agreed.

All I can really say is that my first week at 'work' felt awful. I was given little or no direction in what I was meant to be doing and little opportunity to ask. None of the directors are on the same page requirements-wise. I found myself sinking in to such a negative place that I lost all confidence and could feel myself taking energy from everyone around me. I believed I was being brought in to create the training manual and right at the end of the week I was told that all they wanted was a design to hand over to the design company to create the manual. There is no sign of a job opportunity at the end of the trial as far as I can see.

I managed to travel for an hour on the train, pick up some milk and some take-out successfully fighting back the tears, before caving in to body wracking sobs over my fish and chips on the kitchen counter. Even at the time I recognised the humour in the vision that this was portraying, trying to stuff salad-creme covered chips (hey, don't mock it until you have tried it) in to my mouth whilst simultaneously wiping the tears, blowing my nose and gulping air.

And then I got to thinking - what was this all about? The Light has placed me here for a particular reason. What is it? What do I need to change in myself in order to change the situation? I was angry with the MD and the other staff, but more angry with myself for hiding away like a dormouse for the entire week. I was angry with him for not valuing my opinion. But how can he value me if I don't value myself?

The thing is, I would love to see their company with really fabulous, impressive training material. My heart is definitely in the right place. I know that if a couple of design mock ups were handed over to the design company, that it still wouldn't ensure that the content was pitched at the right level, leaving little improvement over what they already have.

So there is one part of me supremely confident that nobody could create those training materials better than me. And this part of me knows that the solution is to quickly master a desktop publishing package and a graphics package, build a few pages in detail to work out how long the entire manual would take, shout my skills from the rooftops and give them a price.

And there is another part of me which is absolutely shitting myself. What if they laugh my proposal out of the room? What if they say no? But even worse, what if they say yes? What if I then have to prove what I am capable of and what if I fail and they don't want me to do any more work for them? Or if they don't have any more work for me? How am I then going to find more business??

I think that potentially this is one of the biggest hurdles that I have to face in life: the art of valuing my worth, of not calculating the potential outcomes beforehand and talking myself out of a taking a risk for fear of failing.

And then I read the Kabbalah Daily Tune Up today, by Yehuda Berg...

I bet I make more mistakes than you. Earlier in my life it used to drive me nuts ... how could I hope to do so much for the world and yet constantly mess up?

But I soon learned to love my losses because, as my father continued to remind me, we learn the MOST from making mistakes. Or as Thomas Edison answered when asked how he persevered in inventing the light bulb after 1,000 failures:

"I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways that do not work, and I do not need to try them again."

Today, be patient with yourself. You are in this world to learn, so start by learning to enjoy the process.

Looks like I am about to learn some valuable lessons.... might as well enjoy the process....