Learning from Our Mistakes: Turning a Very Old Adage on its Very Old Head

My name is Joi (“Joy”) and I have a confession to make.  I’m a baseball addict.  There’s nothing about the game I don’t love. The sights, the sounds, the everything. Between the months of April and October, it’s on the tip of my mind and tongue 24/7.

The other 5 long months? Withdrawal.

Love. The.Game. But, I have to confess, I’m not too fond of losing. When my team (the St. Louis Cardinals) loses, I feel it right into the next day.  If it’s the post season, I might even feel it for weeks.

But, even then… it’s still baseball!

Our young  manager has made a few “head scratching” mistakes this season. And last season, but who’s counting?

He’s a first-class, first-rate, top-0f-the-shelf type of human being.  The players love him, everyone in the organization loves him, opposing coaches love him… heck, I suspect even the umps love him.

Great guy. Doesn’t even cuss. But, that’s a misleading stat, given the fact that he has made some bullpen decisions that make everyone else cuss enough for him AND them. So, in a roundabout way…. he turns the air blue, just not with his own mouth.

Anyway, the good man made a bad decision in last night’s game. Well,actually about 7, but – again – who’s counting?  After head-scratcher #4, I thought, “This guy doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes.. instead he seems to take some sort of comfort in them.”

No doubt that’s pushing it – I’m not terribly reasonable when I’m in the midst of a baseball game frenzy.

It made me think about an old adage, “We learn from our mistakes.”

I’m just not so sure that old adage holds a lot of water. Could it be that it’s just a comforting thought that tends to take the sting out of mistakes?

Ironically, when I came to Self Help Daily to add a quote to the page of Norman Vincent Peale quotes, one of the quotes jumped out at me. I loved it so much I actually turned it into the graphic you see at the top. “We’ve all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it’s more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors.”

Sort of calls the old adage out on the floor and asks it, “What have you got to say to that?!”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m reasonable enough to know that we CAN learn from mistakes.  However, I’m also reasonable enough to know that…

1. That’s not always the case.
2. It’s better to slow down, think things out, and not make mistakes in the first place.

That second one brings me right back to the ballgame. If – prior to the mistake (pick one), our manager had simply slowed his world down for a minute and thought things through – I would be a much happier gal today.

Sometimes that’s all any of us have to do. Take a deep breathe. Gather our thoughts around and take a good, close look at them. Remove emotions from the equation and go with what we know is the decision that carries with it the largest probability of a successful outcome.

The alternative is go just go with a particular knee-jerk reaction because….

• … it’s what I’ve always done.
• … thinking kind of hurts.
• …. my heart’s telling me to.

Here’s a fact that’ll never NOT be a fact – our brain is located in our head, not our heart.

If I’m sounding preach-y, I don’t mean to. If I sound like someone who always centers her thoughts and never lets her heart have a vote…. hahaha, sorry, I couldn’t get through that one without laughing. I am THE WORST at thinking things through and THE BEST at jerking reactions out of my knees based upon my heart’s word.

Preachy? No. Just intrigued. Intrigued by Norman Vincent Peale’s words and intrigued by the concept of simply slowing down and engaging all brain cells, memories, and… yes, in the proper pecking order… emotions. The concept of slowing our world down long enough to THINK before we speak or act.

It just might be the secret to winning – games and life.

Please share your thoughts in the comments!
~ Joi

Also See: More Norman Vincent Peale quotes!