Mistakes are part of our lives, shaping us more than our successes or achievements do. Every time you make one, you learn something new, even if it is a mistake you made previously.
Can you recall a mistake that, in hindsight, propelled you forward more than any success ever has?
To understand better how to turn your mistakes into useful learning situations and opportunities, keep reading this article.
WHY MISTAKES ARE YOUR BEST TEACHERS
There is no better teacher than your mistakes. As mentioned a lot before, practice is what gets you learning and what keeps pulling you ahead.
It’s really important to be aware of your mistakes because if you are, you’ll make sure not to make one again (meaning you learned something new). This happens, if you think about yourself as an example, all the time.
Take Michael Jordan, for example: he missed “more than 9000” shots in his career, lost more than 300 games, and missed the game-winning shot 26 times — he is considered the greatest basketball player of all time.
Make your own conclusions..
TRANSFORMING ERRORS INTO OPPORTUNITIES
The errors that you make can teach you but also create opportunities.. The Growth Mindset, a term used by a famous psychologist refers to the idea of being able to achieve anything by putting enough time and effort in their desired milestone.
Many of us believe in the ‘Growth Mindset,’ and so far, the idea has never broken its promise.
A lot of the times once you are aware of a mistake, you cannot go back and change it — that is unfortunate, however, remember that this will stick in your brain and you will most likely not commit this mistake again (the positive part about it).
Every single mistake you make, creates an opportunity for learning & preventing future mistakes.
STEPS TO CULTIVATING A ‘‘GROWTH MINDSET’’
- Embrace Challenges. As mentioned above, the growth mindset is about practicing over and over — to do this, you have to face challenges. Start learning something you don’t know, go on a difficult run or just do anything that seems difficult for you (mandatory). If you have achieved something without effort, it’s not an achievement.
- Get resilient and face reality. Be able to come back from setbacks stronger than you were Face reality and accept it, if you made a mistake — move on and never make it again.
- Effort = Mastery. If you put enough effort into something, you will eventually succeed, it can be anything. There is nothing more to add here — if you want to achieve something, practice until you are proud.
PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF MAKING MISTAKES
Making mistakes improves problem-solving skills
Every time you make a mistake and each time you succeed, you become more experienced at understanding the difference between a failing idea and a succeeding idea.
Eventually, you will get better and better at identifying mistakes before committing them, that you will start solving things much quicker and easier (because of the expansion of your knowledge).
Increased Creativity.
Each time you do something wrong you get more creative. Why? Because you learn more and more of what works and what doesn’t, which colors, for instance, look better with each other and how you can combine them.
You will be able to come up with ideas much quicker and, as mentioned in the previous point, come up with better and quicker solutions.
Resilience.
The art of coming back stronger from setbacks is important to learn and, if possible, master. By making more mistakes you practice this art, you practice just going on with life — as As often mentioned, practice not only facilitates learning but also propels you forward and its key to achieveing anything.
HOW TO THOUGHTFULLY ANALYZE YOUR MISTAKES
To be aware of future mistakes, you have to analyze the ones you have made in the past. Think about what went wrong, or if the whole idea was just incorrect; think whether you could have done something differently and the whole process would have gone differently.
Asses whether you should try a different approach or you should just dip on the idea as a whole. It is important not to misjudge every action and step you take.
There are a lot of people who overthink and are pessimistic, I am one of them. There is a huge advantage that we share — we tend to know what challenges we will face 2 steps before already.
Be a bit pessimistic sometimes.
MOVING FORWARD WITH NEW KNOWLEDGE
As emphasized throughout this article, life continues regardless of circumstances. Along with the progression of life, we acquire new knowledge, particularly from negative experiences (outcomes of mistakes).
The knowledge we gain from mistakes tends to be memorable because it comes from outcomes we wish to avoid in the future.
LEARN FROM OTHERS
Don’t forget, learn from others’ mistakes too.
Ever heard the saying about not living long enough to make them all yourself?
Read books, read news articles, listen to podcasts — the 3 best ways to learn from others. If you do these, after a couple months, you will not believe how much of the most random things you know (it’s still useful and interesting knowledge to have).
HARNESSING SETBACKS FOR SUCCESS
Remember that every negative thing you encounter in life is meant to be, whether by God or the universe, depending on what you believe.
If you are going through hard times, it’s meant to make you stronger. If you are experiencing good times, enjoy them while you can because nothing ever lasts forever.
And most importantly, remember to learn from everything you encounter.
“To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”
Thanks for reading. If you have anything interesting to share with me please do here (become my next success story)! Today’s mistake is also today’s lesson.