Next Time and Up Until Now – Mistake Or Learning Experience?

If you’ve made a mistake recently and you feel like beating yourself up about it, take a moment to think. Will this mistake affect your happiness for the rest of your life? Probably not. Say to yourself, “next time!” and think about how you’ll handle a similar situation if it ever happens again. You’ve learned from your mistake now, instead of letting it get you down into a negative mindset.

Next Time You Will Remember

Thinking of mistakes in terms of “next time” will put them in a more positive light. It’s easy to think of making a mistake as a horrible failure, something that will destroy your dignity and make you just that much less of a person. This isn’t true at all! Mistakes are impossible to avoid, because they’re life’s way of teaching you. By making mistakes and learning from them, we become wiser as individuals. So really, mistakes are a positive thing, in the long run.

Most of What You Do is Right

There is also a difference between failing one time, and “being a failure.” Sometimes when we don’t succeed at something, we call ourselves failures. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s also a difference between making a mistake, and being a mistake. Most of what you do is done well, and done right. One mistake doesn’t destroy the rest of your existence! Keep things in perspective, and you’ll feel so much better about yourself as a whole.

If you’re tempted to wallow in self-pity, take a step back and think. Maybe you feel you haven’t done your best in the past, and that you made more mistakes than you wanted to, or than you should have. But instead of labeling yourself negatively, think “up until now.” If your past isn’t exactly how you’d like it to have been, remember that just because it was that way in the past, doesn’t mean you can’t change your own future.

Your past mistakes provide learning experiences.

Let them teach you how you want to act, achieve, and succeed in the future. You can always change the way you see things, and the way you see yourself. Remember you can always do it differently next time, and your life can change for the better.