{"id":437,"date":"2026-07-27T07:32:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/?p=437"},"modified":"2026-07-27T07:32:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:32:04","slug":"mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/?p=437","title":{"rendered":"Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Long ago I found an article in a piano magazine that gave an idea for learning. The article suggested having a \u201cno mistake\u201d day when I practiced. I experimented with the idea and discovered a well of creativity inside that I didn\u2019t know existed. That well sprang from simply being okay with freely allowing myself to not do it \u201c<\/strong>right,\u201d or \u201cbe perfect,\u201d every single time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was such an eye-opener, I decided to share the idea with my own piano students. The following week a woman arrived for her lesson and began to play the tune she had chosen to learn. After a few moments, she said, \u201cI don\u2019<\/strong>t know what\u2019s wrong. I did this perfectly at home and now I\u2019m making so many mistakes!\u201d So I asked her to play it again and told her to make as many mistakes as she could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she finished I told her there weren\u2019<\/strong>t nearly enough. Surprised, she said \u201cReally?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYep\u201d I replied, \u201cDo it again. Let go and just play.\u201d After playing the song a few times she lost her tension and played it well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a competition recently, my daughter was chosen to be part of a line-dancing team that would showcase the choreography of a much beloved teacher. Each team member chose a\u00a0 special name, complete with a Western costume, hat, boots, and all the trimmings. My daughter practiced every day, wanting to be perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the competition she called me realizing she had made it so important that her mind was in a whirl. As we talked it came out that she was so stressed because she was afraid of making a mistake, of not being a good team member, and disappointing the teacher she respected and adored. She wanted him to win and if she made a mistake, she believed his loss would be all her fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we talked, she finally remembered the idea of being free to make a mistake, the little lesson I had shared with her years before. What relief!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she hung up she told a team member who was also very uptight that she could be free to make a mistake. The team member said \u201cI love that!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My daughter called when it was over to say that the teacher won two of the competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a side note, the dance was videoed and put on YouTube and elsewhere. She said that on viewing the dance, she was unable to discern the two places she got lost a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Bob shared the idea that we have never made a mistake. He said, “There’s no way you and I can ever say we made a mistake; because you don’t know what the outcome would have been if you had done something else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, the idea that there was no such thing as a mistake\u00a0seemed absurd. but after observing for a long time, I realize that things I had \u201cseen\u201d as mistakes were actually experiences that taught me the most about life and my part in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He further asked his audience, “What would have happened had you not been late or gone down the wrong street?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, every time I came up on an accident on the road, I thought how grateful I was that I was late, sort of in the wrong place but at the right time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019<\/strong>s interesting to observe all the mental anguish we put ourselves through and how things are just fine anyway. What a waste of time, energy, and peace of mind It is to waste all these moments worrying about being perfect, correct, right, and never making a \u201cmistake.\u201d And how impoverished it leaves me when I do!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long ago I found an article in a piano magazine that gave an idea for learning. The article suggested having a \u201cno mistake\u201d day when I practiced. I experimented with the idea and discovered a well of creativity inside that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marshasummers.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}