Author Peggy Holloway

DECISIONS AND MISTAKES

I used to be so afraid of making mistakes, that it was almost impossible for me to make any decisions. It wasn’t until I started seeing mistakes as growing experiences, that I started seeing decisions as neither right nor wrong. Some people make a list of pros and cons, of each decision, before deciding to do anything. I don’t even do that. What it’s about for me is more of a feeling of trusting myself and my own instincts.

Some decisions I’ve made appeared at first to be a disaster. Sometimes these have resulted in learning experiences I used later. One example is this. When I first got my masters degree in psychology, I got a job with county mental health, where I had to do Psychological Evaluations for street people, and find placement for them. I hated the job, and was attacked twice. I only lasted about eight months.

The good thing that came out of having this job, was that it gave me the experience I needed to qualify me for a job as top evaluator of adolescents. As it turned out, I loved working with adolescents. Part of the job was also doing group therapy, and I really loved that.  I saw many adolescents turn their lives around.  It was probably the most rewarding job I've ever had.

For me, the thing I know about making decisions is that there are no right or wrong decisions. There are advantages and disadvantages of every decision.  In every decision you will lose something and gain something.  So decision making is not a black and white issue.