Why Mistakes Are ACTUALLY A Good Thing

No, you're not crazy, you are reading the title right.

I'll tell you why.

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What if I told you that the founder of KFC, Colonel Sanders was rejected more than 1000 times,

Michael Jordan? Well he was not even picked for his school basketball team when he was a sophomore (15-16yo).

He was also quoted saying,

“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life.''

But let me ask you this, do you consider these two failures?

Probably not, you're crazy if you do.

People get so hung up on taking the wrong decision or doing something badly, we are so scared to make an error that we sometimes don't even try which is an even greater shame than making the mistake in the first place.

In this article I'm going to share with you how to handle mistakes and dealing with failures,

These mental shifts helped me go from dwelling on my mistakes and letting them affect my whole day, ruining my mood to failing and brushing it off effortlessly,

And they can help YOU to never waste a mistake again.

What Actually Are Mistakes?

First we need to understand what mistakes actually are,

The dictionary tells us that mistakes are 'acts that are misguided or wrong'.

My definition of mistakes would be;

'An action which did not lead to it's desired outcome, either knowingly or unknowingly'.

If something did not end out as expected/wanted than something went wrong.

Sometimes we know immediately if we've made a mistake, other times we don't, we may find out days or weeks after if that was the correct course of action.

No joke sometimes I'll be doing something random like walking in the street and i remember a situation from a couple months ago and THEN things click, in that moment I realise that I could have done something differently.

I always laugh when something like this happens,

I'll be walking and then I'll get this Ahh ha moment like, 'DAMNNN, THAT'S WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE'.

I feel like I found America or invented the light bulb for the first time haha.

Even if we think a certain situation has passed it doesn't mean we can't learn from it

Mistakes shouldn't be weight us down

Let's think about it a bit, 

How did we learn to walk? 

By falling

It's the same way a homing missile finds its target,

Move, move, move, OOPS TOO MUCH, slightly left, good keep going, slightly more to the left, there you go.

I got this example from the book Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz,

But to make mistakes a positive thing you look and change course accordingly,

Mistakes are part of getting to where you want to get to,

Failure is part of the process of success.

so...how Do We Handle Failure??

Well, you know the classic saying;

You are not a result of what happens to you, you are a result of how you react to it

Now I now this may sound cliché,

I hate overused sayings just as musch as you do,

But we can learn from this,

It shows us that the REACTION is more important than the ORIGINAL ACTION/Situation, so this means that we can have a GOOD or a BAD reaction.

A reaction that helps us and pushes us forward OR a reaction that kills our spirit and makes us feel worse.

Everyone makes mistakes, but the successful ones react in a different way,

Let's go back to Michael Jordan and his famous quote,

I did not show you the full thing, I left out the last part,

“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

He says it himself, the reason as to why he succeeds are his failures.

But,

How can you use failures just like Michael does?

You see, the very successful people, they don't see mistakes as defining to them,

Mistakes don't define them,

You are NOT your mistakes,

Remember bro,

You make mistakes, mistakes don't make you

We too often use mistakes to measure capabilities rather than use them as a tool for learning,

Use mistakes as stepping stones,

Each one adds a new stair to the staircase.

Instead of dwelling on them ask yourself what you learned,

And believe me you won't be affected negatively by mistakes anymore.

Comforting Truth About Mistakes

Besides, people don't even remember your mistakes, only you do,

Remember, people care mostly about themselves, you probably remember the time you messed up but not when the guy next to you did and he probably remembers when he messed up but not when you did.

Dealing with mistakes and learning how to handle them is a vital part of life,

Remember the beginning of this article?

I told you to never waste a mistake, it's cause mistakes are opportunities.

So when you don't learn anything you've wasted an opportunity,

THAT should be what you get angry about,

All the mistakes that you haven't learned anything from,

THAT'S a shame, not making an honest mistake,

Remember, if you didn't try you wouldn't have made that mistake,

So at least take it as a sign that you're trying,

That you're trying to be better.