Getting It Wrong

‘The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” 
Elbert Hubbard

It’s never easy to admit you’ve made a mistake, but it’s a crucial step in learning, growing, and improving yourself.

We can only learn from a mistake after we admit we have made it. As soon as we start blaming other people (or the universe itself), we distance our self from any possible lesson. Admission of a mistake, even if only privately to our self, makes learning possible by moving the focus away from blame assignment and towards understanding. Wise people admit their mistakes easily. They know progress accelerates when they do.

But for many reasons admitting mistakes is difficult. An implied value in many cultures is that our work represents us: if you fail a test, then you are a failure. If you make a mistake then you are a mistake. You may never have felt this way, but unfortunately many people do.

For anyone who never discovers a deeper self-identity, based not on lack of mistakes but on courage, compassionate intelligence, commitment and creativity, life is a scary place made safe only by never getting into trouble, never breaking rules and never taking the risks that their hearts tell them they need to take.

We need to realise that mistakes are an essential part of self improvement. Don’t be overwhelmed with guilt and regret; analyse how you can learn from them.

Learning from mistakes requires three things:

Putting yourself in situations where you can make interesting mistakes

Having the self-confidence to admit to them

Being courageous about making changes

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” 
Albert Einstein