If you have made a few really bad choices in your life (I have for sure!) you may find yourself scared to reach out and be creative in some area for fear of making more mistakes.  If you start to doubt your decisions, you will tend to stop making decisions.  We can’t live life on default, picking up whatever happens to fall on our path, never venturing out of a very small space, and expect this to be fulfilling.  Mistakes mean you are really living!

At the start of this year I started so many things I had never done before- personally and professionally.  You Tube videos that I made were so jacked-up at first it looked like I was a shadow figure.  This very blog used to totally baffle me; it was brand new and totally empty and intimidating. My personal relationships that were challenging as well as rewarding required personal risk… and, consequently, I made a ton of mistakes.  I kept going forward- because I had no choice- and a few of the mistakes I made, in retrospect, helped me to grow in ways that I never thought possible. Now I am ready for a new handful of risks and I realized that this was a topic we never cover much together… so…

When you are afraid to reach out and take a risk, here is a bit of life feng shui to try:

Start by answering this question: What never changes in your life?  Your finances, your creative expression, your living situation, your relationship status.  Whatever it is… you are obviously due to take some risks in these areas.  That means you have to be willing to fail or possibly look totally silly in order to one day succeed!

Now:

1. Build up your self-empowerment.  In your home its the area to the far left of your entrance door.  Some call it the money corner.  No matter what you do here, make it vibrant, clear the dust and shine some major light here.

2. Make a list of the mistakes you consider you have made in the past.  Hm, that’s a big list, huh?  Instead of getting crazy about them, write down next to each one how it has helped you to grow or how it has created a shift in your life.  If we look at cause and effect as the driving force of what happens to us every day, we can see that even mistakes are a way of experiencing and learning from our karma.  Want a better life?  Start understanding how you have learned, or can learn, from the seeming missteps in life.

 3. Look at the art and listen to the music that you consider great.  Recognize that there is nothing “perfect” about it.  Most powerful, celebrated artists I have known search for accidents and pray for the “divine mistakes” that make their work come to life.

4. Write out a few paragraphs of the ideal life you want to live. I suggest you avoid the “worst case scenario” thoughts that can really get you focused on the worst, and start honing in on your ideal life.  Do you wake up every day afraid to try new things because you can’t bear the thought of doing something wrong in your perfect life scenario?

Decide to reach out in a new direction- be it online dating (who knows what could happen?), starting an electronic magazine, taking a stab at a new business venture, or anything you want— and go for it!  Every mistake you make and own will help you to master your newly exciting life! xoxo Dana