How not being afraid of making mistakes can help you to learn and grow

Starting a new language, playing a new instrument or beginning an untried hobby all provide the opportunity to make friends and learn something new. In turn, that novel experience can provide you with an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and grow as a person.

In all walks of life, mistakes are made – some big, some little. They are all part of the learning process.

But if you become fearful of making mistakes, it can have unintended and harmful consequences. In this article we look at the dangers that lurk behind mistakes and how you can put them to your advantage to flourish both professionally and as a person.

The dangers of trying too hard 

From a young age, you are exposed to tests, exams, school reports and peer pressure. In many professions, you are then exposed to more scrutiny, with appraisals, promotion rounds and so on. There is a danger that if you don’t obtain the grades or the recognition you feel you deserve or that others expect you to achieve, you might consider that to be a failure. 

This may have two consequences; you either ‘try harder’ to get a better result next time, or you stop enjoying what you are doing and give up, because you can’t see how to improve and develop any more. 

• The danger of ‘trying harder’ is that you might use disproportionate effort to the goal that you want to achieve. In turn, where the goal feels increasingly unachievable, the effort used to continue to try and achieve that goal can create immense stress on your mind and body. If trying harder starts to become your ‘norm’, it can lead the way to harmful ways of thinking and working.
• The danger of giving up on something is that you stop doing something that you are actually highly competent at and enjoy – any why?  In many cases it will be simply because you are under a false illusion that you can’t develop your skills any more or that you’re not good enough.

So how can you avoid these dangers?

Let your mistakes guide you

The good news is that we are all human and we all make mistakes, unless you’re actually a secret robot! So, there is no getting away from the fact that mistakes will happen from time to time, that’s just life and you have to accept that. 

However, the keys to not being phased by making a mistake and learning from it are:

• to be completely aware of what the mistake was;
• to understand how it can be avoided next time; and
• putting new and better habits into practice.

Awareness of the mistake is crucial and may also require a mentor, teacher or similar role model to explain:

•  the mistake clearly to you;
• how in practical terms it can be avoided next time; and
• what new habits need to be introduced and practiced to help to prevent that mistake from occurring in the future.

To be told that something is wrong, or that you need to improve without an adequate explanation of all of the steps required to develop a more sound approach next time round, does not teach you anything – and that’s often what differentiates a mediocre teacher/mentor from a great one.

Work on cultivating new habits 

Once you are aware of what new habits need to be developed, they can then be worked on gradually, preferably with experienced guidance to help you to develop those better habits.

However, if the same mistakes then continue to be made, you may need to look at the mistake again with fresh eyes and ask:

• did I fully understand the mistake;
• if so, did I understand how to create a better habit to help avoid that mistake in the future?

If the answer to these questions is no, there is a danger that you will just plough on with your old habits and continue without focus, which will affect your ability to grow and develop in your professional life. However, if you understand what is required to develop and achieve new goals, you can go about practicing the steps required to do that.

In practicing these steps, there is of course a possibility that you will make further mistakes – in fact it’s highly likely! But when learning a new and better habit, the focus should not be on the old mistake, but on inhibiting it and allowing the new habit to come to the fore naturally.

Allow your new habits to win

By focusing on developing the new habit, this will help you avoid dwelling on the mistake, because your energies and attention become devoted to positive improvement. When learning to ride a bicycle as a child, you probably weren’t so worried about falling off, because you just wanted to learn how to cycle and enjoy the freedom of it. Then suddenly before your knew it, hey presto, you were cycling without stabilisers!

We all have our own role models who we really, really admire for excelling in their fields, be they sporting, business, artistic or otherwise. However, for them to really excel, they will have also made a lot of mistakes along the way. The difference is that ultimately, they didn’t allow those mistakes to get in the way of their overall progress and development.

Similarly, by not dwelling on your mistakes or what you think others might think about them, that will allow you to focus on your own self-development and improvement. In turn, that will not only help you to build and fine-tune your professional skills, but it will also allow you to become less fearful, more confident and develop a far more positive mindset to life.