Little Kids Are Failures
Little kids are failures. Yeah, I said it. All they do is fail. They fall over. They spill their food. They poop all over themselves. They can't even put a shirt on! Their entire life is a series of humorous and ridiculous failures. On the flip side, nobody develops faster than a little kid. They can go from barely being able to roll over to an all-out run in 12-18 months. In that span, they fail literally thousands of times.
I believe there's one thing that makes little kids different from adults. It's one of the reasons why kids can develop so much faster than us adults. Little kids don't care what other people think. They aren't self-conscious. They don't get embarrassed. They are simply focused on the task at hand.
My kids used to be like that. The first six years of their life were carefree. They were willing to try anything, fail miserably at it, then eventually master it. Then, something changed. They woke up one day, somewhere between the end of Kindergarten and the beginning of first grade, suddenly caring what other people think. This is the exact moment when their ability to rapidly pick up new skills started waning. My continual encouragement is for them to go for it and not worry so much about what other people think. I know, easier said than done. They thrive every time they can shelf their fear of failure and disregard what others think.
One of my clients is trying to make a massive financial shift. They've done it one way for more than 15 years, with disappointing and frustrating results. They have some deeply-seeded bad habits. They overspend, don't budget, don't track, struggle saving, feel guilt, never give, live with a ton of debt, and fight about all of that every week. Things look dire. At best, their finances will be a disaster for the rest of their life. At worst, their marriage is about to crumble.
Despite how bad things looked, I was immediately optimistic about them. In our very first meeting, one spouse made their position very clear. "We're willing to do anything to turn this around, and we don't care what anyone else thinks." The moment he said that was the moment I knew they would win. He went on to explain how they already felt like absolute financial failures, so it wouldn't bother them if they failed forward while trying it my way.
They aren't afraid to fail. They don't care what anyone else thinks. They sound like little kids. And that's exactly why they will develop and grow so much in the season ahead. They are selling their cars, drastically reducing their lifestyle, stepping away from a few expensive friends/family trips, and getting intentional. They are going to fail every step of the way. It's going to be messy. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be beautiful.