Mistakes...The more you make, the more the chances to win...

“Mistakes”- the very word brings fear to our minds. Everyone fears making a mistake but we’re even more scared of having to admit one. Have you ever thought why making mistakes is one of the most fearful aspects of our lives? Ever since childhood, our parents and elders have taught us the importance of being earnest. But even then all of us have lied on some occasion or the other. Why? The answer to the earlier question lies here as well. We’ve all lied because we were not ready to face the consequences. If some one told us, “Its ok child – tell me the truth, I am not going to punish you for it”, we would most often have ended up telling the truth.

Any mistakes we make in our life, whether personal or official is also to be dealt with in the same way. If our boss, client or business partner has an attitude which tells us, “Its ok that you made a mistake – after all mistakes are stepping stones to success”; then we wouldn’t have any issue in admitting that we made one.

It’s only human to err; but the important thing is to learn from the mistake and make sure it never happens again. Twenty years back, if you committed a mistake at work, you would’ve been fired without any second thoughts. But situations have changed today. It’s no longer an unpardonable sin to make a mistake provided you learn from it. The biggest mistake would be to repeat the same error twice. To an extent, the management of most companies go soft on trivial mistakes, so that it’ll be taken as a learning experience and employees will refine their skills accordingly.

I was in a meeting last week with a client, which turned out to be a real character testing one. I made mistakes after mistakes. At the end of the presentation, had it not been for the client, who very frankly pointed out my mistakes to me personally, I would have gone home unaware of the blunders I’d made. I sincerely appreciated the mindset of the client to help me realize and improve on my mistakes. He advised me to take this as a learning experience and to narrow down my margin of errors in the future. Those words of his really hit me. I spent a sleepless night with his words echoing in my thoughts. For a moment I lost all my confidence and self-esteem.

Now I guess you all realize the inspiration behind this week’s newsletter. It’s simply human nature to make errors. But it takes character to realize the blunder you’ve made, own it up and make sure you never repeat it. Making a mistake once is not a crime but repeating it definitely is one.

When you make mistakes, it shows that you are trying out new things and that definitely is a good sign. The more things you attempt to do, the better you will understand your area of functioning. Universal law of success says, “Attempt all things, keep what works and discard the ones that don’t”. So the good news is – not to worry if you’ve made a mistake, but take it as an opportunity to grow.