Permit Yourself to Make Mistakes

Are you a perfectionist? You need to make sure everything is just right before you are willing to say done. If you have to, you’ll do everything yourself. If this describes you, as it sometimes represents me, it may be time to lighten up and let yourself make mistakes.

You alienate your team members when you take on their responsibilities. None of us are perfect, and you shouldn’t expect your team to be. When you take on your team’s work, you will do nothing but work all the time. Your team won’t grow because they can’t live up to your unobtainable standards. They will end up leaving because they’ll feel like they can’t do anything right for you.

If you put less pressure on yourself to make mistakes, you will find that you are making fewer of them. That kind of pressure to be perfect is taxing on your mentality. You have enough trouble without putting an unnecessary amount on yourself.

Your team will be happier as they will be able to get their work done. That’s why you hire workers. They will make mistakes. Permit them to fail, as well as yourself. By letting them make mistakes and not expecting everything to be perfect, you will not have to work as hard or as many hours.

Because you are allowing a bit of imperfection, it doesn’t mean you have to settle for inferior work. You still need to require your team to do a great job, but you will find strength in numbers.

Done right, your team will become a well-oiled machine. When they make a mistake, the group can discuss what happened and how to try to avoid them in the future. Don’t be too hard on people about errors. Acknowledge them and figure out the best way to move forward. Your team members will respect you more when you approach mistakes in this way.

The fast-paced business environment has no room for perfectionists. Work needs to get done, and trying to make sure everything is perfect will give the advantage to your competitors. They will produce more products quicker and will have you wondering what happened. Perfectionism will cause your company to lose. Mistakes can lead to opportunities that you would not have seen without making mistakes.

Until nexxt time, keep the faith.