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It’s one of the questions I’m asked most often…
What if I choose wrong?
People are so freaked out about making the wrong choice.
Traveling down the wrong road.
“Wasting” time, money, energy on the wrong thing.
Newsflash. With rare exception. The only bad decision is indecision, followed by inaction.
It doesn’t matter whether you choose right. There is no wrong. No such thing as wasted time, money or energy…IF:
(1) you commit to being present and engaged in whatever you’re doing, and
(2) you approach everything with curiosity and openness, always a student.
So maybe you took the “wrong” job?! What can you LEARN from the experience of living in a place of misaligned action? What skills, resources, relationships can you cultivate doing the “wrong” thing that’ll advise and accelerate your quest to get closer to the “right” thing?
What is your “serendipitous detour” teaching you about what you do want, don’t want, excel at, suck at, love, hate, yearn for or abhor?
The only way the time, money and energy you put into something that’s not quite right is wasted is if you choose not to see and build upon what you’ve gained along the way.
In the end, the only bad decision is indecision, because it leads to inaction. And without action, there’s no data. No experience of life. No information to serve as fuel for evolution, connection, joy, progress. No growth. Just gray.
Get out of your head and into the world!
As Joseph Campbell said…
Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.
So, go ahead. Stumble. Decide. Act. You cannot be wrong, unless you act without intention, presence and openness to evolution.
The only wrong choice is deciding not to choose.
When you do that, you automatically lose.
What say you?
With gratitude,
Jonathan
P.S. – Before someone brings it up in the comments. Yes, there are rare exceptions to this. The decision to commit violent crime may be one. Very likely a bad call. Especially in it’s impact on the victims. But even then, there can be immense growth and opportunity that comes out of this.
Witness the journey of Christian Howes, a child classical-violin prodigy who’s 4 years in prison introduced him to a world of humanity and music he’d never known, and led him to shift gears and eventually become the world’s greatest jazz violinist after being released.
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Jonathan Fields is a serial-entrepreneur, business strategist, speaker and author. His latest book is Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance. Fields writes about performance-mindset, innovation, leading and entrepreneurship at JonathanFields.com
