I came across a quotation today that spoke to me, and I wanted to share. You see, I used to be terrified — absolutely, utterly terrified — of making mistakes. It kept me paralyzed, kept me from taking chances, kept me from opening up about who I really am as a person because I was so afraid that if anyone could see the mistakes I made, they wouldn’t want to be around me. I credit this mindset for keeping me from pursuing my own weight loss for years as well, and when I discovered a really powerful, really healthy way of eating that looked like it might help me, I almost didn’t try it because I was so worried that if I tried it and it didn’t do what I thought it would, I’d look foolish to anyone I told about my plans.

I still don’t like making mistakes. (Does anyone really like making mistakes?) I would prefer it if I could get everything right the first time, and no one out there ever had to see me at my weakest and most vulnerable. But you know what? Every time I’ve held back on trying new things, which inevitably brings with it ample opportunities to make mistakes, I’ve felt sad and restricted and hopeless. And honestly, how does that help anyone?

If I had chosen not to give healthy eating a shot, I’d never have had the amazing life transformation that made it possible for me to have my beautiful little boy. If I let this fear hold me back from helping other moms with their weight loss, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many wonderful women who are now doing great and losing weight painlessly for the first time in their lives.

Both of these are sources of tremendous joy for me, and I did have to risk making mistakes in order to go after them. Still do have to deal with risk every single day in some form or fashion — after all, I’m taking a chance just by sharing my advice with you. Someone out there reading this may absolutely hate what I’m saying, hate my writing style, not want to have anything to do with me. That’s OK. That’s the risk I take because truly, I’m here in hopes of helping as many of you out there reading as possible because I’ve been where you may be right this very minute, struggling to lose weight, wishing it could be easier, wishing that the scale already looked more promising.

If we don’t let ourselves make mistakes along the way, we’re likely not giving our all to anything we’re doing, much less trying to lose weight healthfully — instead we’re just doing “damage control” from the get-go, which means we’re not giving our effort toward our big goal, our big dream for ourselves our all. Who can get things done really well when they’re terrified? Not me!

So let me share with you the quotation that got me thinking about this issue of trying to do things perfectly right from the start:

Whenever you fall, pick something up.

This little gem by Oswald Avery really nails the real reason why making mistakes is so valuable: we can always learn from them. There is, quite literally, ALWAYS something to be gained from falling, from making mistakes, from overeating when you were planning on eating healthful amounts of food, you name it. The lesson to be gained is NEVER that YOU’RE a failure for messing up, though, to be sure! More likely, it’s that you need to plan ahead, anticipate challenges, have ideas for what to do if the urge to overeat strikes, etc.

Do you generally learn from your mistakes? If so, congratulations. And if so, do you then take different action the next time?

If not, it’s time to start. Forget about what other people might think. What do you want? What do you stand to learn from trying something new, even if it doesn’t go 100% perfectly at the beginning?