Dive into Mistakes

Try and Error – learn from your mistakes

Why we are afraid to quit

A couple of days ago I thought about the question why we have so much pressure in our society that we need to finish what we´ve started.

My sister told me during the pandemic that she is worried about me cause I load one project after another onto me. My father told me when I was younger that he pushed me to finished at least one thing – my education. (I already quit school.)

In my IT jobs we had a lot of “try and error” situations. That´s fine. If it´s about changes in the software or changes in the company it´s accepted. But not when it´s about our life?

The early condition to perform

As a kid I heard phrases like “what do you want to learn after school”, or “you need to learn that for university” – apparently it didn´t matter if the students even planned to go to university – or “you need to finish at least one education that you can work in this job”. I didn´t got the opportunity to try out different sports or music instruments cause according to my mother the costs were too high. Only when I was sure I wanted to continue she would pay. Other children were forced to continue learning a music instrument even they didn´t liked it after a while and wanted to try something else.

How are we supposed to figure out what we want to do if we are not allowed to “try and error”?

I switched my carrier and my country of living with the age of 37. Everyone thought I ruined my life.

Now I´m in a situation where I need to reinvent myself again.

I don´t see that as a problem.

Adapt the situation and change the plan

The job and live I had before was never mine. I was constantly searching for something something. I just felt off in this way of living. Yes, I functioned but I didn´t felt like I belonged there.

When I needed to come back thanks to the pandemic and went back into a full time job in my old field I was afraid that the 3 years abroad working as a dive instructor would be a setback in my resume. It was not. I gained a hell lot of experience and was fluent in English.

But I know that a lot of changes in your CV are read as a bad thing.

Cause they read it like you can´t decide what you want.

How are we supposed to know what we want when we are not allowed to try different things?

A teenager should already know with 17 what he/she wants to do with the rest of their life. They are supposed to know which job they want to do or which topics they want to study. A kid is expected to know without trying which sport or music instrument it likes.

I would like to see a change in the mindset that it´s a good thing to try out different things.

That it´s a good thing to stop an education if you know it´s not what you like. If we would think like that it could become a good thing to “try and error” cause you have the time to figure out what you really want to do. Like this we would have more happy employees who like what they do and are passionate about it instead of pushing trough something for not looking like a “failure”.

Especially in our childhood and young adulthood we should be free to try out different areas to not get trapped in something we don´t like.

Did I knew before if the live of a professional diver is the right way for me? No, of course I didn´t. But I needed to try. And it worked out great. Living this live style is getting more and more difficult moneywise but I still love it.

In diving one of the ground rules is “no pressure”. You can´t teach diving to someone who is trying to overcome a survival instinct with pressure. I was always happy about the students who tried and clearly said “that´s not mine”. Yes, you tried, you figured out it´s not yours, that´s fine. At least you tried. If I would pressure these students to continue with the dive I could ruin their lives. I´ve seen the outcome way too often.

But the same pressure that leads to a horrible outcome is okay when it´s about our lives?

In diving it´s even the opposite. Once you learned the basics in the Open Water Course the next course is actually about trying different options. Like this the students can figure out if they want to continue with a certain specialty. In almost every specialty course we have a try version. One dive to try it out before you need to decide if you want to go all in, learn everything and earn your certification. There is no problem at all if you don´t like it and want to try something else.

Before deciding I drop everything in Germany and try the dive instructor life I never thought about what I really want to do. Well, no. I wanted to become a make-up artist and work at the theatre or movie. I never got the chance cause my school grades were “too bad”. So I ended up looking for what is possible for me with these bloody not saying anything about me numbers on a paper. I became a medical assistant. And felt stuck right after the education period was over.

Everything else in my career just happened from there on. It was never what I wanted to do but society tells you you have to do something. Especially career and making money.

Why do we let the society norms dictate our live that much?

It feels like we´re getting brain washed from the very beginning we open our eyes in this world. Everything just happens to fulfil our place in the industrial society. Even we think we have a choice we don´t. School hours are not meant to be good for the children. It´s scientifically proven. They are meant to be good for the working parents to be at work in time. We are getting forced into school at a certain age – and don´t get me wrong, I´m not one of the people who think no school is the best school – in a school system that teaches us nothing about life, only about functioning in our society. Preparation for work or university.

Now I have the picture of the animals in mind where even the elephant is getting scored for live according his ability of tree climbing.

Isn´t it time to change that? Doesn´t it make more sense nowadays to establish a “try and error” mentality for our lives?

Salmy Hayek once said “earn your mistakes, embrace them” or something similar.

My mantra is “if you do it, do it right…even if it´s a mistake”.

Change the script: Embrace the “Error”

Stop seeing mistakes as a failure. Start to love them. And stop thinking about other peoples opinion about it.

I´m 45, all the plans I made the last 2 years didn´t worked out as hoped. A lot of people would I´m a failure. But hey, a lot of people call me brave!

You made plans and it didn´t worked out? Well okay, let´s make the next one.

Sure it can be overwhelming first. Dive into that. Embrace even that. You´ll come out stronger once you got yourself out of it. Listen into yourself what you need. Laying in bed and crying? Okay, give yourself 2 days and then listen what you need next. Make a step by step plan. You want reach the end of the way if you don´t know how to do one step after the other.

You get asked about your next steps after something didn’t worked out? No idea, it´ll come to me. It always did. Sooner or later.

And for all the people out there, your family, your friends who tell you you need to figure it out: No, you don´t. Why?

The best response for me: Well, at least I´ve tried…..

Are you ready to try by mistake?