Why Making Mistakes Is Good For You

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually afraid you will make one,” Elbert Hubbard had said rightly.

Volumes have been written about it. A child doesn’t learn walking or cycling without falling. In fact, learning of any activity involves making mistakes. The learning process is interwoven with mistakes being committed along the way. The phrase ‘trial and error’ must have been coined to describe such occurrences in the course of human history. But as man grows up, he is not only taught but many times exposed to different forms of humiliation on making mistakes that his ego comes in the way of admitting or owning up having made a mistake.It is embedded in his psyche to avoid as far as possible activities which involve any element of risk of making mistakes with the result the learning curve gets proportionately curtailed.

Break Out Of Mental Barriers

Eminent writers have explained why being wrong is such a problem with all or most of us. The common and widely prevalent thinking about being wrong is not merely associated with shame and stupidity, but we also fear of being labeled as sloppy, ignorant, lazy, eccentric or lacking in intellectual or moral levels of the others. This collective mental block prevents us from innovating and experimenting with new ideas and applications, from giving shape to ideas that keep occurring to all of us from time to time. For many of us the fear of the risk of failure keeps us from moving out of our comfort zones to even add some value to our lives on actives that will keep us in the public gaze.

Learn From Your Mistakes

Contrary to this misplaced fear of being called as intellectually inferior, it is the capacity of the human being to commit errors that makes us learn from our mistakes, revise our ideas, our understanding and move ahead. In other words, being wrong is the only way to learn. You can only learn from a mistake after you admit you’ve made it. If you blame others instead, the focus shifts away from any possible lesson. There is also the degree of mistakes, meaning a mistake can be as trivial as forgetting the key or it may be a blunder resulting in a major disaster of Titanic proportions. The lessons from smaller ones can be easy to fathom and understand but the errors behind the truly gigantic incidents can be known only after a thorough investigation, which becomes a must to avoid recurrence of such incidents by installing the proper corrective measures. You must have heard the saying ‘A stitch in time saved nine’, but it must have come into practice only after some mistakes were made earlier. Many times mistakes are also glossed over because to admit it would be tantamount to admitting me as an individual or we as a country (existing on some idealistic basis) or organization or whatever are not ‘perfect’. This deprives any opportunity not only for them to change for the better, but also to the heirs or descendants to observe the appropriately correct procedure or measure under similar circumstances.

Take One Step At A Time

It is very much possible that a mistake of a serious nature, something which might have affected others also has an impact on one’s self confidence and gives rise to self-doubts about one’s ability to perform well in future. The best way to overcome such an impact would be to work at it again in steps starting from the basics, keeping emotions under check, analyze situation leading to the mistake by taking help from others or other similar cases if necessary and trying to do better at each stage.

Finally keeping one’s sense of humor intact will provide courage to keep self doubts at bay. Every mistake should be viewed as an opportunity to learn, to become wiser and better at risk-taking, as it helps to overcome fear and gives freedom to explore better ways. How can we forget the famous words of George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

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