Permission To Suck

A New Kind Of Game Show

Garth Beyer

Think of The Price Is Right. Now, imagine if a contestant guessed a price wrong, that they got to try again, perhaps with a different product, a different price, a different strategy. Those who win are those who stick around through all the wrong choices, not those who gets things right again and again.

Our society puts a lot of currency on being right, but social currency comes from being wrong and not walking off the stage, which takes audacity.

It took me awhile to realize it, but our lives aren’t like The Price Is Right. We win when we give ourselves permission to suck from time to time, when we take risks, when we shun the audience in our mind that’s booing us when we do things wrong.

 

Stay Positive & When Was The Last Time You Permitted Yourself To be Wrong?

Permission To Suck

Garth Beyer

There are a few tasks a day, I imagine, that we absolutely need to do things right. There are some projects at work where there is simply no room for being wrong, especially if the shipping deadline is EOD.

That being said, each project or obligation we have to get right, we actually think to ourselves how it must be right, it must be perfect before we send it out. It becomes a constant reminder to do things slow and safely.

Oddly, though, a project where there is room for being wrong, we often don’t acknowledge that privilege and thus don’t exercise it, thus putting us at a disadvantage to those cashing out on the privilege of being wrong.

We ought to notice when there is room for wrong or, as I consider it, permission to suck because the path toward creative righteousness is made of moments of wrong, of failure, of suck. How?

Because regularly shipping work that sucks a bit or being off about a project direction – essentially being wrong about something, goes from feeling like death to being a bit of a nuisance to being a treasured opportunity.

 

Stay Positive & Recognize The Moments You’re Permitted To Suck (and cash out on them!)