Each week on his show, Bob painted a mesmerizing landscape in just half an hour. He was known for his soft-spoken style, his signature permed hair, and his uncanny ability to make you believe that just like him, you could paint a masterpiece.

Most of Bob’s viewers didn’t know that he meticulously planned out his paintings in advance. He would create the original, memorize every brushstroke, then paint the scene a second time during the taping of the show.

Every once in a while, Bob would make a tiny mistake and then repeat his signature phrase, “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” Then, he would either paint over the mistake or find a way to blend it into the scene.

There is a good lesson here not only for painters, but for writers as well. We like to beat ourselves up for mistakes. We are disappointed when we mess up or don’t perform perfectly.

But remember, you’re human. You’re imperfect. You won’t get it right every time.

There are times when you will flat-out bomb. That book, that blog post, that article, that lesson or speech won’t go as planned. In those moments, the last thing you want to do is celebrate your mistakes.

But what if you did this instead: rather than painting over those flaws and imperfections, you accepted them as a part of the picture? And not only accepted them… but celebrated them?

It doesn’t mean you should compromise your standards. You can still reach for excellence while also accepting your humanity. Those happy little accidents, if you learn from them, can be the pathway to a life that is more beautiful and scenic than all the perfect paintings in the world.

Today’s Challenge: What is the last mistake you made? What if, instead of trying to cover it up, you accepted it as part of your picture and used it as a learning experience?

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Sonny finds Carlo hanging out in the neighborhood street, and they get into a fight. He has Carlo up against a wall and starts punching him. However, because of the camera angle, you can clearly see that James Caan is not really hitting the actor playing Carlo. And of course, that’s what you’d expect since this is a movie. But it’s a flaw so obvious that it makes the fight a little bit comical.

However, that doesn’t detract from The Godfather’s greatness. In fact, it makes the film more endearing because it’s a work of art made by humans who were on a tight budget and a tight production schedule.

Every great work of art has flaws and mistakes. Does this mean we shouldn’t strive for excellence? Of course not. We should do everything we can to make sure our writing flows well and that we are using proper grammar, punctuation, and so forth.

But after we have done these things, there comes a point where we can no longer improve it. We have to release it to the world and move on to the next thing.

As Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, said, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Don’t get hung up on the myth of perfectionism. You’ll never be perfect and there’s no such thing as perfect writing. But that is exactly what makes your writing so perfectly human.

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It’s the movie version of the reset button on a video game. If you grew up in the 1980s or later, you know the experience of trying to beat a game, getting frustrated, and hitting the reset button over and over so you get endless lives.

It’s too bad real life doesn’t work that way. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a reset button to go back and re-do past mistakes? How cool would it be to have endless opportunities to have new life experiences or avoid those situations that cause us pain?

Unfortunately, you only have one life. We each have a limited number of days. There are only so many books you can write. There are only so many people you can meet. You can’t do everything or avoid every mistake.

James Baldwin said, “Best advice I ever got was from an old friend of mine who said, ‘You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life at all.’”

You won’t live forever. This day you’re living won’t come around again. It only happens once. What will you do with this day you have been given, which will slip through your hands so quickly, and which you can never get back again?

You have a choice to make… so choose wisely.

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