Embrace Your Mistakes
I have a confession to make. I’ve made a mistake and I’m proud of it. Yes, you have understood correctly. Honestly, I’m proud of most of my mistakes. It may sound strange but I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t fail so many times in my life. Of course, there are some things that I really shouldn’t have done and surely I wouldn’t do it again because it’s just been such a waste of time and energy.
But, overall I have little or no regrets about what I’ve done so far. I’m only sorry for those mistakes that had a very severe impact on others, especially for my loved ones. Those are the things that I had to forgive myself otherwise I wouldn’t be able to move forward with my life. Besides, what’s the point of feeling sorry for yourself or beating yourself up for the things you cannot change or undo? The answer is easy: none.
Attitude Is Everything
It’s not a secret that you can’t turn back time and change the past. No matter how hard you try you can’t make things unhappen but nobody ever can. That’s the fact and sooner or later we all have to accept this. There is no other way. Unless you found a doorway to another dimension or parallel world where it’s possible to change the past. If so, please share the knowledge. And if not, we shall have to content ourselves with a more earthbound solution to our moral quandary.
This basically means that we have to acknowledge the reality, accepting the things we cannot change is the key to be truly free from our past. So if you don’t want to be haunted by the demons of your past you have to acknowledge your mistakes.
The next step is to accept that sometimes no matter how hard we try the results will be less than desirable. It’s just how life is sometimes. Some people call it a failure but I prefer to call it an opportunity to grow as a person. I believe that so-called “bad things” happen in our lives to give us an opportunity to understand certain things, change our attitude and build our character.
Therefore, when things don’t go as you planned, that happens sometimes, you have two choices: you can use it to your advantage or indulge in self-pity. And as far as I understand that sometimes it’s completely normal to feel sorry for yourself, don’t play the victim game. It’s not healthy and surely it won’t do you any good. Don’t do that. You’d better use a negative outcome to your advantage. Turn a negative situation into a positive one and learn some valuable lessons from it. Don’t look for pity or blame others for your failure. Instead, take responsibility for what happened, grow as a person and move on with your life. Yes, it’s possible. No, it’s not easy.
But over time this process will become almost effortless. You know what they say, practice makes perfect. So if feel hopeless and lost because things didn’t work out how you wanted don’t give up. Remember that whatever you’ve done, there’s always some solution. Why? Because there is no such thing as a no-win situation. Everything depends on how you look at things. Your mindset is everything. Just like the fruit of everything good in life, begins with a challenge.
The Art Of Making Mistakes
It’s not a secret that making mistakes is a fundamental part of the learning process. That’s because learning involves inquiring knowledge through study, experience, and failure. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not urging you to consciously and intentionally making mistakes.
Because that would be foolish. What I have in mind here is that you should face the fear of failure for two main reasons. First: failure is inevitable because we are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. Second: Failure can be a valuable learning experience that may eventually accelerate your personal growth. And in most cases, that’s exactly how it happens. But more importantly, failing doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Keep this in mind and use it next time when things don’t go your way.
Sometimes to achieve our goal we have to go through a real struggle, suffer and sacrifice something precious to gain something priceless. Everything comes at a cost of something. If you want to succeed, you need to give up on an easy life because without effort and suffering you can’t make progress. Nothing worth having comes easily otherwise it would be meaningless. And you know what the funny thing is? Is that we all know this but instead of using this knowledge as life guidance we prefer willing in self-pity. Why? Because it’s easier to feel sorry for yourself when you haven’t succeeded (yet). Yes, I agree that in order to understand correctly our situation we need to acknowledge our pain, resentment, and disappointment.
Then, if we want to turn a negative situation into a positive one we understand what went wrong, draw some important conclusions, most probably change our attitude, face our fears and prepare for the next challenge. Because every great success is proceeded by failure. So when life is testing you don’t give up.
'I've learned so much from my mistakes... I'm thinking of making some more.'
-So, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, where do I go from here? I’m at a crossroad and I know that I can mess up. I feel ready for the transition but I’m worried about the unknown. I can stay here maintaining only apparent equilibrium or I can choose my new path and take one step further. But what about the consequences? What about all of these things I’ve irrecoverably lost? What about that? What if I’m risking everything by confronting my destiny? What if I fail again?
Is that what you tell yourself sometimes? If you can relate to this I’ve got something to tell you. And here it is. Everything depends on how you look at things. Because your intentional thoughts influence your reality and shape your future. And ask yourself a question: Must “mistake” always be used in the pejorative? What about the story of innovation?
Did you know that one of the best inventions were discovered by accident or as a result of a “mistake”? Indeed, there are numerous examples of unintended scientific discoveries that changed the course of history like penicillin, matches, x-rays, pacemaker, brandy, LSD… to each his own… Do you see where I’m going with this? What if this whole idea of making a mistake is just an illusion?
The fact that you are not satisfied with an outcome doesn’t mean you failed. Just think about this. How many times did you think that you failed and then it turned out that it wasn’t a real mistake? Sometimes bad things that happened have actually some pretty wonderful results. Everything’s different in retrospect. The same thing with the right decisions. How can you be 100% sure that the decision you are taking is a good one? We believe that we are taking a good decision but you can judge the correctness of your decision on the basis of the result. And as we all know sometimes we have to wait a long time for that one.
So as you can see, it’s not that obvious. And of course usually, if we listen to our intuition it’s paying off but it’s not always the case. So instead of being afraid of failure think about all the valuable lessons you’ve learned from your past mistakes. I’m sure that if you think of it and write everything down there will be more pros than cons. Don’t take my word for it, do a little investigation and see what happens.
From my personal experience, I can tell you that I learned the most valuable lessons from my mistakes. Was it easy? No, absolutely not. You have no idea how many times I let myself down. Not to mention all these moments when I embarrassed myself. But we’ve got no time for that. So anyway, sometimes our failures are the best what happened to us.
When I look back I did pretty crazy stuff. Some of them were quite irrational and every single person I knew told me that I must be crazy doing this. But hey, you know what? I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t do all of these things in the past. That’s why I truly believe that failing, getting into trouble or even embarrassing yourself contributes enormously to personal development.
Sometimes even more than perfectly correct decisions are approved by everyone you know. Besides, you never know what happens next. Sometimes we don’t know what’s best for us or what’s truly meant to be until it just surprises us. Sometimes what you defined as your biggest mistake turns out to be the greatest decision that you ever made. And still, I’m not encouraging you to consciously and purposely make bad decisions because it would be just stupid.
What I’m trying to tell you is that there is no such thing as 100% good or 100% a bad thing. Everything depends on how you look at things. Everyone’s perspective is different. Not to mention an obvious fact that everything looks different in retrospect. So, if you think that you made a mistake, think twice, ask yourself what went wrong, ask for an opinion of a person you can trust, and think about what you can learn from this experience. What is experience is telling you about yourself? How it is affecting you?
Then write everything down and then read it out loud. Listen to your own voice. Face your fears. Always try new things. Go outside your comfort zone and embrace your mistakes by acknowledging them. Mistakes are our best teachers, so be a good student and learn your lesson! No one learns from their success, we all learn from our failures. Take advantage of your failures and try your best to turn every negative situation into a positive one! And remember that your life is in your hands!
Be mindful
Stay positive
Embrace your mistakes and create the best version of yourself!
xx Kate
