The other day my husband was talking about a leadership principal that involves the term analysis paralysis, and my ears perked up.
When I asked him to explain further, he said leaders have to know when to take action, “It’s all about not over thinking things, it is ok to make mistakes because you will learn from them.” So that got me to thinking . . . if multimillion-dollar business leaders know that doing something and making mistakes leads to learning, and doing something to learn is better than doing nothing and becoming paralyzed, that is a concept moms need to embrace as we raise our children.
Don’t we all know children who are stressed out because they are striving so hard to be “perfect” and do everything just right? Some of us may know children like that because they are living under our own roofs.
If you are wincing just a bit, I am not here to chastise or condemn . . . but to encourage, support, and suggest that maybe your eyes are reading these words because God wants to speak to your heart on this matter.
You don’t know what you don’t know . . . or at least you don’t know what you haven’t stopped and taken the time to consider—really consider. Are your kids suffering from analysis paralysis and have you contributed to their paralyzed state?
Frankly, my daughter has shared with me that her friends who seem to have the hardest time adjusting to “leaving the nest” are those who experience high levels of analysis paralysis. They simply don’t know what to do because they spend so much time overanalyzing what they should be doing and stressing over potential mistakes that they truly are frozen.
God can bless a decision, He can’t bless indecision.
So how do we “practically” prevent our kids from suffering from analysis paralysis? On many occasions when my son asks my husband a question, my husband will look at him and say, “You’re a smart guy; figure it out.”
Do you see it? If my son lives his life having decisions made for him, if he is not trained in making decisions courageously, he becomes timid about making decisions and he is not going to be comfortable trying to figure things out. Failure is just practice toward success.
We all want the best for our kids, but sometimes the best doesn’t happen until they mess up royally a whole big bunch of times, so they can experience failure, learn from mistakes, adjust, and confidently try again—seeking success, but fearless of the attempts.
Question: Who’s the greatest basketball player ever? Michael Jordan. Did you know he has missed more last-second shots than any other professional basketball player?
Question: What’s one of the greatest inventions ever? Lightbulb. Did you know Thomas Edison failed more than 1,000 times at fashioning a lightbulb?
What if analysis paralysis had over taken these men and they never met their potential? I suspect the answers above would have been different—someone else’s name.
What does all this mean for you? Chill out mom; free your kids up to learn through failure.
No more frozen! Instead, Mom, how about you and your children choose to try, attempt, and explore without fear of making mistakes and failure? The freedom to fail may just unlock something fantastical that your child is meant to accomplish in the world for God’s glory!
Perfection truly is overrated. Come on, Mom . . . let it go!
Go ahead! Blare it loud and sing it, Mom! You know you want to!
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