3 Reasons Making Mistakes Is Good For You

In this post I will show you how to look at your ‘mistakes’ in a new light.

Picture the scene-

I’m in school. The maths teacher gives out our homework. Mine is covered in red crosses. My stomach churns. So many mistakes.

Result?

I grow up believing that I can’t do maths.  At all.  It’s my fault. I’m hopeless.

 

For my latest writing project I’m reading the log books of our village school. If a child ‘blotted his copy book’ he was punished.  He was scared of making a mistake. 

Result?

He probably made more, when his hand shook with fear.

Our attitude to making mistakes stems from childhood. It continues as we get older. We see mistakes as failures.

The truth is-

1. I would not have become afraid of maths if I’d had the right teaching from an empathetic teacher.
2. In Victorian times little was know about how children learn. Punishment was seen as forcing the child to learn. It didn’t. It simply made him afraid.

Thomas Edison had 700 unsuccessful attempts to invent the electric light.

When he was asked how that felt he said:

‘I have not failed 700 times.  I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.’

Making mistakes is good for you because-

1. …it makes you persistent.

Persistence paid off for Edison. It will for you.

      2.   … you will find a way to improve.

Perhaps you need more tuition, more practice, more information, more time.  

Perhaps you weren’t ready for the task.

         3.    …it will make you  think around the problem.     

There will be other ways to look at the situation, other methods to try to get where you want to be.  The first way didn’t work, but there will be plenty more ways.  You will succeed!

Next time you make a ‘mistake‘, look at the situation realistically.

How can you benefit from what has happened?