Have you ever made any of these mistakes? Did you fail an important test? Shout at a parent or partner only to regret it later? Judged someone only to find out you didn’t have all the facts?
Be honest. How many of these mistakes have you made?
Whether you’ve made these mistakes or others, we’ve all made mistakes at one time or another. Sometimes, life allows us to correct some of these mistakes, while at other times, we learn valuable lessons from the consequences of our actions.
What are the most important lessons that making mistakes can teach you? Let’s consider some:
1. You don’t know everything. You are not born knowing everything, and that’s okay. The human brain is malleable, and you have an infinite capacity to learn and grow. Every day, you learn new things, whether big or small.
- Whenever you make a mistake, your neural pathways are working. Your brain prepares itself for a lesson. The bigger the mistake, the bigger the lesson you learn from it.
2. Always accept responsibility. Mistakes can be very embarrassing, especially when they happen in public. Your initial reaction after a grave error could be to blame it on someone else. Blaming someone else may seem like a good idea, but it makes you look like a coward or like you’re in total denial.
- If you cannot accept that you’ve made a mistake, you cannot figure out what to do to fix it. There will be no point in making a mistake because you will learn nothing from it.
- Accepting responsibility for your negative actions builds character and makes you a better person.
3. You are not your mistakes. Learn the difference between “I am a stupid person” and “I have made a stupid mistake.” In the second statement, you can isolate a mistake you have made from yourself and work on that mistake without feeling like a loser.
- Logically speaking, after making errors, the best thing to do is consider what caused it, learn a lesson, and avoid it in the future. That’s it.
- If you are ashamed of your mistakes, repeat this. “I am human, and I make mistakes.” Don’t just say this. Internalize it! Forgive yourself for your errors so you can move on.
4. Everyone else has made mistakes. Making mistakes and failing is something people hide. Everyone has failed at something before.
- Social media bombards us with images of people living “perfect lives.” It can make you feel left behind, especially if you compare yourself to these standards and realise you cannot match up. No one is posting their mistakes. Focus on yourself. Learn from your mistakes and grow.
5. You have been successful at trying. Acknowledge your successes. You tried to set up a business, made one fatal mistake, and lost everything. That is a huge gut punch. What did you learn?
- You learn not to make that mistake again, but another thing you know is how much work you put into your business before you got to where you made a mistake. Acknowledge the right actions you took and use that to motivate yourself to do better next time.
6. It makes us more accepting and understanding of others. Making mistakes and learning from them can help us build stronger relationships. Knowing that you make mistakes can help you manage your expectations of friends and partners when they make mistakes.
- All of us need people who are kind and understanding in our lives. Trying, failing, and trying again transforms you into a person who is more likely to help others draw the best lessons from their mistakes.
7. Motivation. Learning from mistakes motivates us. How so? Take, for example, video games. They’re designed for players to fail the first time. They also design it to help us find new ways to face particular challenges in the game.
- When you finally find the solution, you want to punch your hand in the air and say, “Yes!” You feel true satisfaction. The result is worth all those tries. The key to continuing to try is motivation.
- Making mistakes motivates us to keep trying and working on different ways to overcome a particular challenge. We feel fulfilled when we are successful in the end.
The world will not end when you make a mistake because. The world is full of possibilities. Even failures that may seem catastrophic at the time may be full of lessons.
The key to success is to continue to give 100% or even 110% of yourself in every situation and allow the lessons you learn from your mistakes to mold you into the best version of yourself.