The "F" word I am referring to is FAILURE. In my work as a coach and also as a manager i seem to run into my fair share of perfectionists. I am certainly all for giving your best effort in any situation. However, when it begins to have an emotional and physical effect on your life I have to wonder where the benefits of striving for perfection are. What does perfection cost you physically and emotionally? Now I have to be honest, there was a time in my life when I could not be with failure. I wanted everything to be perfect and in terms of work I would put in extra hours to ensure that everything was done just the way that i wanted. Somewhere along the line I let it all go. At some point in my life I began to look at failure not as doom and gloom, but rather as an opportunity to make a different choice and switch things up. The interesting thing is that you will often end up with the same end result in less time with less frustration and stress and you will often experience a great deal of powerful learning as well. There are many famous people who failed over and over again before they reached their goals. I can only imagine that failure provided them with many different perspectives that eventually led to success. So perhaps failure leads to perfection???
So let's look at a different perspective. What if in every situation we made a conscious effort to have "FUN" and experience joy? How would things be different? We only need to look to kids to see a great example of how to have fun and be present in the moment. Is it possible to have fun in every situation with everything that we do? Can you give yourself permission to have fun and release some of the stress? I work in an extremely fast paced work environment that can be quite stressful at the best of times. I can tell you that when we are having fun as a team it becomes almost effortless. We look out for each other and jump in when something goes wrong and we laugh when we make a mistake. The customers seem to enjoy this environment as well. When we are not having fun you can feel it in the air and we are struggling to achieve our goals.
I realize that this is a big topic for lot's of folks and that there are many layers to it. The question is can you choose a different perspective? Can you make a different choice that allows you to still reach your goal?
Happy Reflecting
Ross Tayler
Professional Life Coach
www.workplacealchemy.com
As
your leader, upon meeting at the trail head, I will share with you a
quote or short reading to ponder, could be anything from Socrates to
fairy tales to the latest on CNN. If you choose to, you may comtemplate
the message during your hike (or NOT, we won't be checking!). We'll
hike at our own pace, meeting at a mid point to stop for a rest and a
stretch. 
