You Made a Mistake? Congratulations!

So, you made a mistake. Some mistakes are made only one time. A skydiver discovers during his descent that he improperly packed his parachute. A teenager races a train to the railroad crossing…and it’s a tie. A hiker ventures too close to the cliff and gravity does what gravity does.

Thankfully, your mistake has less fearful consequences. You still have opportunities to make more choices. You many not feel like it now, but the regret or pain you are now experiencing is evidence that you still have the ability to do things differently, to make some changes.

Mistakes have many possible sources. They can be caused by faulty information, incomplete information, incorrect interpretation of information, or a host other reasons.

Sometimes decisions need to be made before necessary information is available or in times of stress. Circumstances occur when there may be no time to make a considered decision, weighing all of the possible outcomes and the consequences of each, but rather only an instant when you must react instantly rather than have the luxury of serious contemplation or reflection.

Berating yourself for a poor outcome from a decision you made in the past is not a beneficial activity. It relates to a historical event that occurred in an earlier time over which you no longer have any control or influence. Mistakes are part of life. We all make them.

Instead, why not focus your energies on the present and future, where you still have control and influence?

Given the same circumstances again, knowing only what you knew when you made the earlier decision or reaction, might you make the same decision again, or would you make a different one? Who can know?

The potential advantage of failure over success is that failure usually offers more opportunities to learn and grow than does success. Excepting, of course, in the examples given above. Lessons may have been learned, but a tad bit too late for a positive outcome.

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that life happens. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we don’t. The take away is simply this: Never, never, ever, under any circumstances, give up! Success is just getting up one more time than you fall down.

Please share your thoughts and any response you may have in the form below.

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