Don’t Miss the Miss
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

I have been watching some baseball lately and have been reminded that the best of the best only gets a hit about one-third of the time. This year it’s even lower than that. The other evening, I heard the commentator say that a player had a lot of good swings. I struggled with that concept until I listened to a teaching on good misses and bad misses. As the struggling batter gets closer to making meaningful contact with the ball, their swings get better. They are learning something about their swing and how they are seeing the ball. You can actually watch a batter get better with each at-bat. They have learned something each time they were at the plate.

Have you ever tried something that you weren’t quite ready for? My guess is that you didn’t succeed the way you would have liked. Your attempt fell short of your expectations, and some, if not many, would have labeled that as a failure. I would like to propose that it wasn’t a failure at all. You tried your best, didn’t achieve your goal, but you did get better. It was a good miss, and the next time you will get even closer.

Sadly, far too often, people give up because they missed the miss. They saw the miss as a failure or some sign that this goal wasn’t for them. Maybe they gave in to negative pressures and the limiting beliefs of others.

Whenever we do something the first time, we are lousy at it. That’s just normal life. A good miss is when we try to do something that we weren’t quite ready to do. We stretched ourselves, trying to do something we had never done. With each stretch we get closer to the goal. Each time we get a little better, grow a little more, and before long, we achieve the goal.

Remember, good intentions never improved anyone’s life. Good actions did. You won’t know unless you try. If you are growing and apply the principle of not missing the miss, you will have several good misses just before you get to a great hit.

If you would like to hear more about this topic, please join Marisa Norcross and me for Episode 223 of The Next Page podcast as we discuss how to make the most of good misses and how to deal with the occasional bad miss.

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