In our society we are taught that making a mistake is wrong and should be avoided. I wonder why? What’s wrong with recognizing yourself as imperfect and wanting to improve?
Charles Chaplin said: “I like my mistakes, I don’t want to give up the delicious freedom of making mistakes.”
Why didn’t he want to give up his freedom to make mistakes?
To understand this point, we have to stop and think about what we are taught about mistakes since we were children. They teach us that No you have to commit them, you have to avoid them at all costs What are they “bad “and that show our own lack of validity as people perfect that we should be. That is, making mistakes makes us imperfect beings and that is not what is expected of us.
At this point, Chaplin rebelled and claimed his right to commit them, since he knew that he could learn a lot from them.
What do you learn from mistakes?
A mistake It is defined as: Wrong concept or false judgment, misguided or wrong action, thing done wrongly.
Therefore, according to its definition, an error consists of a concept, action or thing ill-advised At no time does he point out to us that it is done wrong or condemn us to anything.
When we are doing something the wrong way It gives us information on how not to do it.
“Making a mistake and not correcting it is another mistake” (Confucius). And so true! Being ashamed of the mistake can lead us to not admit it, thus making another mistake.
Recognizing the error is fundamental and very valuable for learning, since from there we can ask ourselves why it is wrong The problem arises when, instead of accepting the mistake, we take out the whip of self-punishment or doom and begin:
- “You have to see, you never do anything right”
- “If you look at how easy it is and you go and…”
- “You’ll never be able to get it that way”
And a long etcetera that you could surely fill out yourself. Here the error becomes a point in favor of our little capacity, little value, thus affecting our self-esteem
If we could overcome this way of functioning and we would just accept the mistake, we could think about why it has been committed and what alternative ways there are to resolve that fact. From here, a different, new and more suitable way of doing, saying, thinking, whatever arises.
“Every failure teaches a man something he needed to learn”. (Charles Dickens)
“I have learned that mistakes can often be good teachers of success.” (Jack Welch)
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” (Oscar Wilde)
This is the good side of errors, all the potential they have. They can teach us great things and we will surely learn them for a long time.
We just have to learn to see them in a different way, without them questioning our own worth
And finally, a proverb that helps us throughout this process:
“If you fall seven times, get up eight”. (Chinese proverb)
