The Art of Making a Mistake

Instead of instructing yourself to avoid mistakes, you should learn the art of making a mistake and gaining wisdom from it.

The first thing that happens after you make a mistake is that you become upset. Everyone I know gets upset.That is the first indication of a mistake. At this point of upset, you find out who you really are.

Well at the moment of upset, we become one of these characters. I'm going to describe the cast of characters who are brought to center stage when upsets from mistakes occur:

1. The Liar. The liar will say such things as, "I didn't do that." Or "No, no, no. It wasn't me." Or "I don't know how that happened." Or "Prove it."

2. The Blamer. The blamer will say such things as: "It's your fault, not mine." Or "If my wife didn't spend so much money, I would be better off financially." Or "I would be rich if I didn't have you kids." Or "The customers just don't care about my products." Or "Employees just aren't loyal anymore." Or "You weren't clear in your instructions." Or "It's my boss's fault."

3. The Justifier. The justifier says things such as: "Well, I don't have a good education so that is why I don't get ahead." Or "I would have made it if I had had more time." Or "Oh, I really didn't want to be rich anyway." Or "Well, everyone else was doing it."

4. The Quitter. The quitter says such things such as: "I told you that it would never work." Or "This is too hard and it's not worth it. I'm going to do something else easier." Or "Why am I doing this? I don't need this hassle."

5. The Denier. Called this person 'the cat in the litter box' which means this person tends to bury his or her mistakes. The person who denies that he or she made a mistake often says things such as: "No, there is nothing wrong. Things are fine." Or "Mistake? What mistake?" Or "Don't worry. Things will work out."

When people are upset due to a mistake or accident, one or more of these characters will take over their mind and body. If you want to learn and gain wisdom from this priceless mistakes, you have to let The Responsible You eventually take control of your thinking. The Responsible You will eventually say, "What priceless lesson can I learn from this mistake?"

If a person says, "What I learned is that I'll never do this again," he or she probably has not learned much. Too many people live in a diminishing world because they continue say, "I'll never do that again" instead of saying, "I'm glad that happened because I learned this or that from the experience." Besides people who avoid mistakes or waste mistakes never see the other side of the coin.