I’m listening to Seth Godin’s Linchpin this week and this point really struck a nerve with me.

We are trained to not make mistakes. School is all about getting high grades by not making mistakes, but you can’t make art by not making mistakes.  No wonder we feel like we are wrong all the time. I do.

I always feel like I’m not doing enough, like I’m making mistakes.

Peter Shankman wrote this week about feeling like he was missing out. This is a guy who is wildly successful, and he still feels this way.

Sagar Jha, At TEDxHalifax, spoke and recited his poetry about the regret we feel about not jumping on every opportunity we find. He says, not only is it impossible to physically do them all, but that some are meant to be little seeds that we nurture in our minds.  We grow these seeds, or morph them into other ideas, or integrate them into other opportunities or pass them along. We should lose the regret and guilt.

In this week’s video, Marie Forleo answers the question about how to handle feeling inadequate.

The answers:

  • Everyone, I mean everyone, feels this way. Revel in the shared experience.
  • Understand it comes from you and you are the boss of you, so change that tune.
  • How you react to that feeling is also up to you – acknowledge it and choose to ignore it.
  • You can do and dare or you can do nothing. What’s the worst and best that can happen in each case?
  • Let go of worrying about not doing enough.
  • Focus on doing what you are doing and doing it as well as you can.
  • You will stumble and make mistakes. Everyone does. Live with it.
  • If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying hard enough.
  • Feel the fear and do it anyway.
  • Watch this.