Recently, going through an old magazine probably Newsweek, I found an interviewer ask One Question, “Which is your favourite Mistake?”
This question made me stop reading for a while and think about it,
Mistakes are inevitable. Few mistakes are avoidable but, sometimes they happen anyway. Maybe impulsive, maybe not. But what you do after recognition of your mistake, that matters. Some damages that happen are irreparable, that is when guilt strikes the most. You have two options to handle the guilt
1. Letting the guilt do more damage, by just thinking about it and over analysing it
2. Understand you made a mistake and learn from it, to take action to minimise the damage from the mistake.
It takes a lot of effort to follow the second option, but it helps you grow as a person, transform. Easier said than done, right? True, because when you make mistakes, you realise all other aspects in hindsight, questions, like what was I thinking?, Did I hurt anyone, if I did, would they forgive me?, Mind will wander to find answers to these questions. But if you learn anything from a mistake, at least the conscience to not do it again.
Out of all Mistakes, Your Favourite Mistake will transform in unimaginable ways, make you better than your earlier version.
Here’s a quick exercise when you retrospect, ask yourself, which mistake or supposedly what looked like mistake back then but then it turned out to happen for good reason, you learned something out of it.
For me, It was getting out of a job I disliked, for a long time I spent thinking about repercussions, thinking it would be the biggest mistake of my life but little did I knew that it would open tonnes of new opportunities. New Job, whitespace to think, learn new skills and be happy rather than dreadful.
Owning mistakes and learning from them can unleash a great deal of potential.
