When I was a child, my Sunday school teacher would admonish us that “pride goeth before a fall.” So for years I felt guilty whenever I felt really good about what I had done. As an adult I reinterpreted that biblical quote to mean that I needed to be careful about being over confident. After all, we can THINK we did it all just right and, because we have false confidence, we don’t bother to check our work or listen to input from others. Confidence is a positive goal. False confidence can lead to a wide variety of problems and mistakes – none of which do we want, consciously anyway.
I am computer literate, but I am no tech wiz. I’ve had a computer since 1980 and had my first web page by 2000 and began selling an EFT training package on line in 2003. I do know a few things.
Problem is that by the time I think I’ve got it down some techy sadist changes it and I have to start over and that doesn’t include all the new stuff they come up with.
But I did think I knew how to link to a web page. Aw, but seems not. I created my previous blog post about the usefulness of questions and linked it, I thought, to a downloadable handout, Helpful Questions, by adding a new page. I then went to my recently reopened Facebook page (another technological change I ignored far too long) to let my followers know where they could obtain this list of very useful questions.
I did it all in under 30 minutes. I was so proud that I bragged to friends that night about my prowess with blogging. While I was out having fun – OOPS, something was awry. Worse yet is that I didn’t even know it for 2 days. I am not someone who checks Facebook or email every 20 minutes. Yes, it is now fixed.
Fortunately, many years ago I let go of my need to be perfect – and I let go of the fear of NOT being perfect. That has been one of the most important decisions of my life. I still care, greatly actually, about producing everything in a quality manner. I am fond of saying that quality is in the details. But if you are not making ANY mistakes, if nothing in your work goes “awry” then you are not living up to your potential.
BTW the actual Bible verse (King James version) is “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” My Sunday school teacher is not the only person to ever take a quote out of context or rearrange it. I suppose many people share my late brother Jim’s philosophy that you “should not let the truth get in the way of a good story” or in this case a good quote. I do miss my brother’s stories.
Till Later,
I agree absolutely Ann. And at least you have the courage to be trying all the new stuff. Was it Edison who said he learnt 50,000 ways not to make a light bulb. He did not look at his “failures” as failures at all. Excessive pride stops all learning in its tracks. Thanks for the download. It was excellent!
Cheers
Elizabeth