It’s not something I’m particularly fond of doing, but I do (every now and then) reflect on mistakes I’ve made – whether they were in the past year, the past day….or if I’m in really rare form, in the past hour. No, I’m not a pessimist. And I’m definitely not a sadist – I’m a realist. A realist who has come to realize that our greatest lessons lie in the text books of our mistakes.
If you were to think back over some of your own beauts, you’d find lessons that were learned, whether you even realized it at the time or not. Maybe you nearly made yourself sick-and-or-nuts by trying to do too much. You realized what you were doing, scaled back and learned a very valuable lesson.
Maybe you misspelled a word in a blog post and were called out by a human spell checker. Perhaps the bite of their words caused you to double check your’s forevermore.
Maybe one of your biggest mistakes was a big fat jump into the wrong conclusion and the lesson, “Look before you leap” has stayed with you since. (Make no mistake about it….excuse the pun….this lesson is a great one!)
So, the next time you make a mistake, don’t kick yourself around 4 counties. Don’t stew in your own juices, and most certainly don’t call yourself hateful names.
Rather, take yourself out for a Latte (or Frappuccino if the weather’s warm) and toast yourself for a brand new lesson. You won’t be celebrating the mistake – you’ll be celebrating the lesson it taught and the wisdom you’ve gained. Said another way, you’ll be toasting to self growth – so, go ahead and have a cookie, too.
Hold each mistake accountable for itself – demand your lesson!
~ Joi
*** By the by, a warm and wonderfully friendly woman recently e-mailed me asking if she could use one of my Quote graphics on the site (I believe it was on one of the Quotes pages). She said she had trouble finding images for her posts and would love to use one I’d made about Eagerness. I told her exactly what I’m telling you now – I’d be honored for you to use any of the ones I’ve done, as long as you give an active link back to Self Help Daily on your blog or web site. I’m making more that’ll be popping up all over the site – all I ask if for a link back.
Does that make me a link desperado? I guess you could bet your sweet a href it does.
