From the course: Overcoming Rejection

Beginner's mind

From the course: Overcoming Rejection

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Beginner's mind

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- Have you ever seen a baby learning to walk? You know, how they're on their toes and they take a few steps and then they stumble and fall and then they get right back up and they take a few more steps and then they tumble and fall and then they get up and take some more steps and then they stumble and fall. That's the way we're designed to learn. Don't make a narrative about failure by saying that it's permanent. I want you to stay open and keep trying. That openness to learning is sometimes referred to as beginner's mind. Beginner's mind is when you don't even know what you don't know. You're open, you're willing, you can take direction or coaching and you feel a great deal of enthusiasm and pleasure in what you're doing. So one way to get more comfortable with rejection and failure is to fail more often. To put yourself in the state of beginner's mind more often, particularly if you are a leader or someone who is normally in a position of power, it can be a great psychological leveler to put yourself in a position where you are not the smartest person in the room, where you are not the best at whatever it is they're doing. So you might want to try taking some kind of dance class or maybe trying some kind of art experiment or developing some sort of hobby that maybe you don't even have a natural aptitude for but that you really enjoy. What I want is for you to have the experience of failure as part of a process, an experience of rejection as part of a process. So it does not become an end point but rather a beginning point. And so that you can enjoy and in the in essence can continue to increase your skills and talents. This will also cause you to develop more sympathy for those around you, who might be struggling as well. So go ahead and sign yourself up for a new activity this week. Even today, that might put you in a state of beginner's mind.

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