What do homing pigeons and humans have in common?

If you take a homing pigeon, put it in a cage, cover the cage and drive the bird thousands of miles to a random place, and let it free, it will find a way home. It may circle in the sky a bit, and then it flies directly to its destination. It knows precisely the way there.

We, humans also find a way home. The difference, however, is that we would be absolutely clueless about our location if a similar thing would be done to us, as described above.

But, we would still find a way to our destination. We would simply start walking. We would have no idea where we’re going, but we would still go. Would you just sit there trying to figure out the way before you start to walk? Probably not.

You would keep walking and ask directions. Even if you’d discover yourself to be in a foreign country, you would eventually find your way back. It would take you a while, but you’d get back home.

We should apply the same mentality to everything we want to do but are afraid of not knowing how and afraid of failing.

The thing is, nobody really knows what they’re doing. At least not in the beginning. Everyone’s just winging it. People who’ve become very good at something just did that first step, and then the second and so on.

Don’t try to do it correctly or entirely right in the beginning. It’s impossible. Just start walking, and you figure out the way as you go. You make a lot of mistakes, but this is how learning happens. That’s the only way.

I think one of the biggest reasons why successful people are better than others in what they do is because they have just failed way more. It’s important to realize that if you try to take failure out of the equation, you try to eliminate learning. Failing = learning. Failing provides a lot of feedback and knowledge.

Though, it’s for us to either take that feedback or not.