The Benefits of Making Mistakes

We work so hard to make sure that we never make mistakes. So much so that we have people who are known as perfectionists. We have other people who don’t necessarily care at the same time we often. Making mistakes.

Now there are times that make a mistakes is bad. If you’re in the bomb squad, you don’t wanna make a mistake.  if you’re in multimillion dollar negotiations, you don’t wanna make a mistake. However, for most of us mere mortals, our mistakes aren’t nearly as impactful as we would lead ourselves to believe. we often put way more pressure on ourselves about getting “it” right that we miss many opportunities for us to grow. 

Being able to change how we view mistakes and failures is important. Now it doesn’t mean that you just shrug off your mistakes and failures, however, they are not as life and death as our brains would lead us to believe. Mistakes can be powerful and good.

Mistakes are good?

Yes, there are times that making a mistake makes the results better. And this goes with your thoughts, create your results. Because as in everything in life circumstances are neutral until you put a thought to it.

Coin mistakes

When it comes to people who collect coins, the coins, with mistakes are the rarest and most sought after of all the coins in the world. This makes mistakes more valuable than the originals.

We have light

Without Thomas Edison, trying everything under the sun and failing we would not have the modern incandescent lightbulb.

When asked about trying 1000 different Waze he had failed Thomas Edison famously said that he didn’t fail 1000 times he just found 1000 ways to not make a lightbulb.

Movies became better.

There are many instances in cinema where mistakes actually made the movie better. Of the most recent instances is in guardians of the Galaxy. The scene where Peter Quill drops the Orb containing the power stone, is a mistake.

You see, mistakes can be good if you look at it in the right way. If your thoughts are that the mistake is a benefit then you will have a different view of the circumstance. however, if you look at a mistake as being horrible, then the mistake was also bad.

The key part about mistakes are what you learn from them. Even a mistake, viewed as something bad can have redeeming qualities if you are willing to learn from those mistakes. There are many instances of people who have been fired from jobs and became grateful for the fact that they were let go. Because they learned more about themselves. To that firing.

So how do you turn a mistake into an advantage? The centerpoint of it all is paying attention to what your thoughts are. Are you playing the victim or are you learning from the mistake? This aspect is completely up to you. If you’re willing to learn from the mistake, you can grow from it. So pay attention to what your thoughts are around the circumstance of your firing.

Know why you made the mistake

Once you realized that the mistake is nowhere near as bad as your brain wanted to make it out to me, you can start analyzing why that mistake was made. Maybe you said something that broke the 97% rule. If you don’t know what the 97% rule is that is 97% of the stuff you wanna say to your wife, shouldn’t be said. you often quickly realize you made a mistake when you say that 97%.

Or some other time that you have made some comment that you realized you probably shouldn’t have said. Those mistakes have a reason as why you said them. Take what you said process. It understand why you said it and then move on.

Often we say stuff because of the thoughts that we have. We don’t want to be thought that we’re wrong. We don’t wanna be thought of that. We were incompetent so we will often try to make up excuses, which are more mistakes to problem. When you take ownership of your mistake, it stops being a mistake and it becomes a learning instance.

How to process the mistake

So how do you process that mistake after you realized that you’ve made it?

Answer is come to understand why you said it look at the thoughts you had examine the emotions that you felt and understand why you took the action of saying or doing.

Apologize

Learn how to apologize if you wronged somebody. And there is a formula to apologizing and to apologize effectively.

1. State the mistake you made
2. Voice the harm the mistake created
3. Explain how you’re going to keep that mistake from happening again

Now this will not fix the damage that has been done, but you are starting down the path of rectifying the mistake that was made. Because you need to remember that there’s more than one person affected by the mistake in normal circumstances. They will not look at your mistake the same way as you did. Therefore, apologizing is one way of owning your dirt.

Build a system to keep it from happening again

From that mistake, you can start learning. One of the best things to learn about a mistake is how to not do it again. That means taking the time and setting up systems that will keep that mistake from reoccurring.

Say your wife is upset at you because you don’t pay attention to her what she is telling you about her day. Then start paying attention to what you’re doing that gives off the impression that you are not paying attention to her words. Yes, I understand that sometimes the details are not important to us men. But to our wives, they are very important. So you may need to use the system of turning your phone down. The. setting it face down on the dresser on the opposite side of the room. Especially if your habit is to pick up your phone and scroll through it when you feel uneasy.

You may also need to make a conscious effort of looking your wife in the eyes while she’s talking. This is good for any human interaction, but we have habits at times of not looking at our wife while she is talking doing active listening where you repeat words back to her to show her you are listening, also be needed. How you do this is completely up to you. If you want your wife to know you care and that you’re listening, you will find ways to fix the problem.

If you’re letting your kids down by working too much then again you need to apologize to your kids and set up a system that calls for you to pay more attention to them. Helps if you get their input on how you would like to provide more attention. If you want to have more of a presence in their life, this is a big mistake that we often try to avoid, but we can grow from.

If you find yourself running into lots of mistakes and that you are beating yourself up about these same mistakes. Maybe you need to get a accountability partner. Maybe you have a friend who will keep you on the straight and narrow. or if you want to be able to excel at changing how you look at mistakes, you might look at getting a coach. If you want to coach taking the next step is easy.