How have you grown in your leadership capacity over the past month? The past six months? The past year?
Growth isn’t always immediately noticeable. But I really hope you can look back at the past twelve months and point out how you have grown. Maybe you added an arrow to your quiver, like moving conversations from surface to something more using intentional questions. Maybe you’ve spent more time pouring into someone. Maybe you’ve swung for the fences and learned something along the way.
Today we are looking at part 3 of a four part series. You can check out part 1 and part 2 to catch up.
Let’s get vulnerable for a moment. Mistakes bother me. Especially mistakes I make that could have been avoided. But that leads us to our next point:
Evaluated Mistakes Unleash Growth
Some situations require swinging for the fences, only to strike out and learn from the misfire. Mistakes don’t mean failure. Unevaluated mistakes mean failure.
Did you catch that? Once again, evaluation makes the difference. I am constantly amazed at what growth can be unlocked when we learn to evaluate our mistakes.
But that means we have to make mistakes. Not mistakes of ignorance, but mistakes of innovation.
A mistake of ignorance is making a mistake when you should have known better. Going to a Mexican food restaurant and binging chips and salsa when you’re trying to cut carbs, for example. Or planning an event without checking the necessary calendars, again.
But mistakes of innovation are mistakes made when trying something new. You plan an event you haven’t done before, or introduce a new emphasis for a season. Sometimes these things work really well, sometimes they flop.
Ultimately, mistakes provide an opportunity for evaluation, which in turn will unleash growth.
I’m going to guess you’re in one of two camps: you’re like me and cautiously move forward, rarely making mistakes, but also not innovating very well, OR you repeat mistakes over and over. I guess you could be in a third place and have this nailed down, to which I cheer you on.
But no matter where you find yourself, what’s your action step going to be? Do you need to do some evaluating? Do you need to take a risk on something? How can you improve? How have you learned from a recent mistake?