Mistake is an act or judgement that is misguided or wrong. As long as we exist, we make mistakes consciously or unconsciously.
Unconscious Mistakes:
Some mistakes we made because of the lack of knowledge or experience. It could be selection of subjects or college if you are a student. A youngster can choose a career that does not align with his life purpose. It could be a decision that caused loss in business if you are a businessperson.
Conscious Mistakes:
There are few mistakes we repeat everyday knowingly. We name it as a habit or laziness. For an example: you know that you will get punishment, if coming late in school or office. In addition, you are doing it every day. That is conscious mistake.
It is when we stuck regularly in office work without doing anything for it. It is when you know your relationship is not working and you are dragging it anyway. It is when you waste a day doing something wrong and repeat it next day as well.
Why we make Mistakes?
All our life we do experiments with things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. During these experiments mistakes happens. As Albert Einstein said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
Mistake also happen because of our carelessness or lack of planning. Failure is also treated as one’s mistake sometimes.
Mistake does not mean Failure:
It is not always a mistake if you fail at something. Sometimes failure happens when we do things for the first time to get out of our comfort zone. This is how we learn. It is important to make such experiments to move forward in life.
“A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.” ~ B. F. Skinner
When we try something new and fail, we face a lot of criticism. It creates fear inside us and stops us to take next step. Never be discouraged from these mistakes in life.
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~ Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927
Never Quit. The Important is to learn from the mistakes so that you can do it better next time.
Do you learn from Mistakes?
It is easy to make mistakes but hard to learn from them. This is the reason we keep repeating them. Each mistake offers a lesson if we are ready to grab it.
Check yourself. List the things that you want to do differently but repeat them every day.
It could be something related to your relationship. It hurts when you fight with your loved ones. You know that you have your own share of mistake. Then you decide to take care next time. However, it happens again next day.
What did you learn from yesterday? You cannot always blame the other one. First ask yourself, did you done something differently?
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” ~ John Powell
Take another example: You are preparing for any exam or your next job change. However, you waste a day without doing anything for it. You regret at the end of the day and repeat the same thing next day. What have you learned?
Do not give me excuse of habit. You can always break a habit by little practice every day if you really want to.
Learn from other’s Mistakes as well:
You can see people failing and succeeding around you. You must have heard stories from your parents about the mistakes they made in their lifetime. Keep your eyes open and learn from them.
Read biographies. Attend seminars and meet up. Read success stories. They will tell you what way to follow and avoid. You life is too short to learn all by doing experiment yourself. Therefore, learn from others as well.
Making mistakes is not learning; it is correcting those mistakes:
As they say, we learn from mistakes. Here, It is important is to realize that we do not just learn by making mistakes but correcting those mistakes.
We all have weak points. We all make mistakes. We remember the first part that mistakes are part of life. The second part is to correct those mistakes.
“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” ~ John C. Maxwell
Most of us make another mistake after making a mistake. We regret and grief over the mistake. We think a lot about what went wrong. By doing this we simply waste our time and energy. You cannot change what has happened but can always do better next time.
“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.” ~ Swami Sivananda
Simple steps to correct Mistakes:
- When we fail at something or something goes wrong: First thing is recognizing what went wrong and why.
- Until you find your fault or recognize your mistake, you cannot fix or learn from it. Make a list of the failure factors if they are many. Recognize the week points.
- Even if it was someone else’s fault, see what you can do about it. However, it is better to first focus on your part.
- Now plan steps for the correction. If it was the lack of information, prepare it for the next time. If it is lack of skill, learn it.
- If there is some habit you repeat every day, break the pattern by doing something new. Practise and improve yourself doing little every day.
- Keep learning and enjoy your being a better version of yourself.
See mistakes as a part of life. See them as an event from which you can always learn something. They simply exist to make us strong with the time.
How beautiful our life will be if we stop regretting the past mistakes and lay them down to serve as a path for a better future.
“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.” ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
