How to learn from your mistakes.

We have all heard the sayings “To err is human” and “you live and you learn”. We make mistakes every day, large and small, failures and faux pas. But failure and mistakes still don’t feel like an awesome learning opportunity. I know it is my shortcomings that make me unique and that I should embrace the stumbles and screw ups. But it is a challenge for me and a challenge for many of us. We live and act in ways to prevent mistakes — not taking risks, expanding our comfort zones or jumping outside the boxes we hide in. But our mistakes and failures are gifts, gems, guideposts in our learning and growth as people. So embrace failures, mistakes, screw ups and shortcomings because they not only make us.

The four kinds of mistakes
One way to categorize mistakes is into these categories:
1.Stupid: Absurdly dumb things that just happen.

2.Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable but your sequence of decisions made inevitable.

3.Involved: Mistakes that are understood but require effort to prevent.

4.Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to avoid next time.

The learning from mistakes checklist

• Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
• Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
• You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
  -Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
  -Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
  -What information could have avoided the mistake?
  -What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
  -Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not?
  -What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again?What kinds of change are difficult for you?
  -How do you think your behavior should/would change in you were in a similar situation again?
  -Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
  -Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.

And last winner is you