I Made a Bunch of Mistakes … and I Just Wanted to Move On!

This happened about 15 years ago. 

Since then, my life hasn’t been the same. I learned a HUGE lesson that I have never forgotten. 

Here’s the story.

I was looking forward to doing our annual visioning with my husband, Curtis. We had made a commitment to creating our life from a vision and had created a few fun rituals to keep us on track. 

I liked setting intentions, setting goals, and making a vision board. I was excited to add in a vision story that year to make the vision even more compelling. 

I was rattling on about the potential of what was to come in my usual enthusiastic way when Curtis stopped me. 

He suggested we look back to see what happened this year. Great idea! I love the year in review. I was all on board. 

His next suggestion was the one that threw me. 

After looking at some of the joyous experiences, financial successes, and other yummy stuff, he asked me about the bad stuff. The challenges, the mistakes, the stuff that didn’t work out. 

I hated him at that moment. 

I knew I had made a lot of mistakes, and I just didn’t want to look at them. They were over and done with. Why couldn’t we just move on? 

Curtis is pretty stubborn when he cares about something, and he wouldn’t budge on this one. 

So we looked back at the not-so-fun stuff. 

The big surprise, the one that brought me the lesson I will never forget, came when I was reviewing my mistakes, the ones I had been avoiding.

Instead of feeling awful, after I looked them in the eye, I felt relief. Huge relief! I could see that, for the most part, they actually were not as bad as I had imagined. I also saw that many of them had simply been a learning step that led me to something better.

And even the ones that really made me cringe seemed to shrink in magnitude when I simply named them. 

For a positive, future-focused person like me, this was life-changing. 

I saw how I had been tripping myself up by carrying the weight of perceived mistakes with me for years, decades, a lifetime. By avoiding the negative experiences, I was giving them greater power. By staying silent, I kept all of them inside me. 

By naming them, I could release them and learn from them. Now I had a habit that would clear out the crap of my thinking and free me up to create my vision, mistakes and all. I love habits that work well!

My year-end Year in Review practice, though, is still one of my favorite rituals. 

I love it so much that I invite you to join me this year. To look at your highlights and – yes – your lowlights! You will discover new insights to carry with you into 2025 and beyond! 

It is free, and I would love to see you there! 

Here is the link to sign up for the Visioning Workshops. You will need to join our free community, and once you do that, it’ll take you to the Events page, where you can RSVP. 

What I really love about living my life from a vision is how it helps me stay connected to my heart and soul when I am doing the hard stuff, facing the challenges, and making those mistakes. 

I hope you will take the time to honor all you have created this year! 

P.S. One of the other exercises  I highlight in the visioning process is the soulseach. I will host a 21-Day Challenge in January to help you launch your vision! To get a sneak peek at how this works, tune in to my latest podcast episode. I use the soulsearch process to help a coach looking for a new mindset when it comes to her marketing. I am happy to report she found one! Be sure to listen to see what shifted for her.