"Some people use up valuable time by endlessly weighing pros and cons for fear of taking a wrong step. Making “mistakes” can be a great time-saver. You find out what works by trying. You get rid of unrealistic goals by having tried and failed to accomplish them. For the rest of your life you might have continued to cherish the dream of writing poetry. But now that you’ve spent several evenings working steadily at it, you can assure yourself that given your personality, poetry is impossible—at least for the present. Forget it and find a more realistic goal instead. What may seem defeating at first is really constructive: You’re building bridges that will eventually take you closer to where you really want to be."