Making a mistake is the best thing you can do right now
Have you messed up recently? There’s no use in running from it. Fess up to your mistake honestly if you want to. move on.
by: E.B. Johnson
Is there any experience more uncomfortable than making a mistake? Whether big or small, messing up can be embarrassing and unsettling. When we make a mistake, it’s hard to bounce back. We have to find ways to change our perspective, though, so we can start seeing our missteps as the learning opportunities that they are. Your mistakes, after all, aren’t actually setbacks. They’re lessons that can bring us closer to our true happiness.
Mistakes carry a lot of weight.
We’ve all made mistakes in this life, but knowing that fact doesn’t make the experience feel any better. Our mistakes carry some weight (some more than others). But they always feel heavier and more consequential than they really are. That’s because we don’t like to get things wrong, and we certainly don’t like other people to see us get things wrong. We have to embrace our mistakes, though, if we truly want to be happy in this world.
Our mistakes feel like they carry the weight of the world.
Making a mistake feels like being outed to the world. When you mess up, it feels like the curtain has been peeled back and everyone can see you for the human, insecure mess that you are. This isn’t true, though. Mistakes hardly ever appear as alarming to the outside world as they feel to us. That’s why it’s important to reshape our perspectives and see our wrongs as the learning opportunities that they are. Often, making a mistake is the best thing that you can do in this life. But it takes time and space to see that.
Why making a mistake is the best thing you can do.
Have you considered that your mistakes could be the best thing that ever happened to you? While it’s hard to see from the discomfort of the moment, getting things wrong is usually how we figure out how to get them right. Instead of seeing your missteps as the worst thing that could happen, start reshaping your point-of-view to see them as lessons and gifts.
Figuring out who you are
There’s nothing better than a mistake to help figure out who you are and where you want to go in this life. Mistakes force us to confront what we’re doing in the present moment. And they force us to question where we’re at. All of these feed into informing us on our journey to self-discovery. Getting it wrong in love and other experiences points us in the direction of what we really want to surround ourselves with.
Gifting a new perspective
In order to survive the ordeal of messing up in life (or in love) we have to adopt a new perspective, and that’s a major gift. Mistakes allow us to adopt the powerful skill of seeing the silver lining. That means we are able to take a lesson or some other positive out of a negative situation or experience. For example, you may see your children as a gift even if your relationship breaks down. Likewise, you may see a cheating partner as a lesson in the type of person never to invest in again.
Refocusing on goals
Think about the last time you made a major mistake at a job. Did it result in a termination? Did it result in you walking away out of frustration? Mistakes have a funny way of allowing us to refocus on our goals and what we’re willing to accept and tolerate in our lives. When you get it wrong, you can find yourself giften with the chance to get away from things that don’t suit you. This space is invaluable, as it allows you to focus on your future goals in life, love, or career.
Learning opportunities
Mistakes are nothing if not learning opportunities. As humans, we are intelligent creatures that grow through the advancement of our knowledge and experiences. We learn best when we are out in the world getting our hands dirty in the midst of the chaos. That means going in blind often and getting our hearts broken and our knuckles rapped. This is a part of the journey, though, and mistakes make up a piece of that journey. Getting things wrong is how we learn to get them right later on.
Opening the right doors
Although mistakes feel extremely painful in the moment, they often lead us down paths we didn’t realize we needed to be on. That’s the beauty of messing up. It often comes with unexpected positive consequences that put us right into the path of good opportunities and great experiences. Consider that blind date that went bad, and the cute person you met on your way to pay the bill. It’s a bit of serendipity when you least expect it. To see these opportunities, though, you have to shift your perspective.
Prioritizing what matters
When we make a major mistake, it can result in some setbacks. Forced to the side of the road for a while, we are given a chance to really sit back and think about where we’re going and what we want. This is an opportunity to prioritize the things you want most. Whether that’s a high-powered career, or to focus on a family, mistakes often work as a guidepost. They can point us in the direction of where we need to go when we stop long enough to pay attention.
How to embrace the mistakes that you make.
Are you beginning to see that there’s always a silver lining to the mistakes that you make? Once your eyes open up to this new perspective, you can begin to actively embrace the mistakes that you make and incorporate them into major changes in your life (and the quality of your future).
1. Pull your ego out of the mix
Ego is a such a big part of the mistake dance, and one of the reasons we so dramatically implode when we get it wrong. Our ego is a big part of who we are, especially in the modern world. That’s not always a bad thing, though, as your ego can empower you to do things your insecurities wouldn’t allow you to. The ego becomes a problem when we mess up, however. That’s because the ego isn’t able to process a mistake without making it a personal problem.
The reason we get so upset about our mistakes is (usually) because we allow our egos to get in the way. Your ego sees mistakes as a character assassination. When you mess up, your ego screams out, “Oh no! They’ve seen that I’m not a perfect person!”
Get your ego out of the driver seat. They don’t have the perspective to handle mistakes, because the ego personalizes everything that happens in its environment. Messing up is not a reflection of who you are as a person. We all mess up. Mistakes are simply a reflection of where we are in our learning journey. Tell your ego to take the backseat and give your common sense behind the wheel. Getting things wrong has nothing to do with your kindness and your ability to connect and thrive. If anything, mistakes make you a better person.
2. Celebrate learning opportunities
Rather than dwelling on all the things that went wrong, you have to start celebrating your mistakes as an opportunity to learn more about life and yourself. Flip the script and dedicate yourself to finding the silver lining each and every time things go wrong. Even when you don’t get any of it right, there’s always a positive message and meaning that can be taken away.
Instead of seeing your mistakes as a character flaw, reframe the error. There’s a silver lining to every scenario we find ourselves in, even if that silver lining is just a lesson we can move forward with. Embrace the chance to learn more about who you are, what you want, and how you need to move in this life.
Learning is not always comfortable, but it is necessary. It’s how we grow and it’s how we find the things in life that really matter. Think about it. Every time you learn a new life lesson, you learn about a new facet of yourself. You learn about the depth of your strength; you learn about your ability to bounce back. Every mistake we make allows us to test new aspects of who we are. Look at your missteps as a chance to become more familiar with the future that fits you.
3. Ask yourself some tough questions
It’s not enough to take your mistakes as a lesson and move on. You need to dig into the meat of that lesson and ensure you really understand how you’re going to change in the future. Think about your teachers in school. How did they ensure you really understood the material they were teaching you? They probably questioned you. And that’s what you need to do now.
Stop looking away from the discomfort of your mistakes. Look right into the eye of that misery and start asking it some tough questions. Be brutally honest with yourself. Did you make a mistake because you didn’t know better? Or did you make a mistake because you did what you know wasn’t right for you?
There’s a big difference between messing up from lack of knowledge and messing up from laziness and lack of dedication to self. One is excusable and one is self-sabotage. Every time you get it wrong, question yourself. What caused things to go wrong? What better choices can I make for myself next time? The tougher you are on yourself now, the easier it will be for you later on when you’re confronted with similar circumstances.
4. Put your lessons into practice
Lessons mean little if they aren’t then applied and used to improve the quality of our lives and our relationships. You’ve got to put the lessons of your mistakes into practice if you realistically want to avoid making those same mistakes in the future. To do that, however, you have to get your hands dirty and actively, mindfully move forward with different intentions than you had before.
Identifying the lessons is only a first step. We have to put the lessons from our mistakes into practice if we want to make them worthwhile. Take action to change anything in your environment that will help to prevent similar mistakes in the future. When you apply your knowledge, you limit the possibility of making that same mistake again.
Sit down and get clear on every piece of knowledge you’ve gained from your mistakes. Writing them down in a journal is a great way to really get clear and ensure you’re pulling out every piece of knowledge that you can. Think outside of the box. How can you spin a silver lining over everything that’s happened in that last few years? Take that knowledge and put it into action. Actively change: the way you think, the way you connect to others, even the career opportunities you pursue. Switch it up and do things differently to avoid mistakes.
5. Move beyond the fear
Even when you learn to see your mistakes as a positive, they can instill you with fear. We don’t like to get things wrong. No matter how self-possessed we become, it’s still embarrassing (if only for a moment) when our relationships fail or we mess up in front of our friends and family. That’s okay. Being human isn’t defined by your lack of embarrassment. It’s defined by your ability to move beyond it toward the life you want to lead.
You can’t allow a fear of messing up keep you from getting where you want in life. Mistakes can leave us frozen in spot and fearful of getting things wrong again. Holding on to that fear is a mistake, though, and keeps us from getting all the things we want in life and in love.
Don’t allow your fear of messing up outweigh your fear of an unhappy life. If you stay where you are, you’ll never get what you want. You’ll stay stagnant and you’ll never meet the people (or have the experiences) that make your life worthwhile. Accept the fact that you’re going to get it wrong again-and-again. Let this knowledge bring you peace, rather than fear. We’re all just out in the world getting it wrong until we get it right. That’s what life is. Embrace the experience and enjoy the ride for all that it’s worth.
Putting it all together…
No one likes to make mistakes, but we all get things wrong from time-to-time. It’s what it means to be human. We take what information we have and we move forward as confidently as we can. Our mistakes, while painful, are really one of the best things we can do in life. They offer us a chance to learn and a chance to grow. But they also give us an opportunity to make the most out of our lives when we learn how to maximize the opportunities they provide.
Pull your ego out of the mix. Making a mistake is embarrassing, but it’s also one of the most human things we can do. We all have missteps and get things wrong. It’s impossible to get everything right in your life. Let go of all that erroneous guilt and allow yourself to celebrate the learning opportunities that your mistakes provide. This is a chance to grow, not a novel way to feel shame. Ask yourself tough questions and pinpoint the changes you can make to prevent similar mistakes in the future. Then put those lessons into practice and into action to create positive change in your life. Whatever you do, don’t allow your missteps to prevent you from going after what you want in this life. Move forward with compassion, kindness, and optimism. Banish your fear and embrace a future that’s entirely of your own making — mistakes or no mistakes.
- Selinger, C. (2005). Recovering from mistakes. IEEE Spectrum, 42(12), 56–57. doi: 10.1109/mspec.2005.1549785
