For most of the earlier part of your life, you were probably taught that mistakes are bad, negative.  You were probably trained to think that errors are something to avoid at all costs.  The tests-and-grades system of education helped reinforce this in the youth, resulting in a widespread misconception about mistakes.

Mistakes aren’t All that Bad

Thomas Edison, after failing to make a working light bulb for the 6,634th time, said that all those previous trials had taught him how not to make a proper light bulb.  While Edison’s case is on the extreme side, his insight on his experience is applicable to this day.  Errors, according to many great men, can be more than just mere errors.  If you put them into proper perspective, they can be learning experiences from which you draw new knowledge and skills.

But They’re Not that Good either 

Just because mistakes can be turned into learning experiences doesn’t mean that you should go out and make all the mistakes you can for the sake of learning.  Mistakes are okay if, say, you really didn’t know what to do or, like Edison above, you had no guide or clear path to follow so you just had to make your own.  If you can preempt a problem and avoid making a mistake, do so.  The fact that you can recognize and avert the trouble means that you won’t really have that much left to learn from that particular incident.  Besides, it would be foolhardy for you to dive headlong into a sticky situation when you’re aware of and capable of taking a better path.  Even Edison would agree to that.

Mistakes from All Over 

It’s not just your mistakes that you can turn into personal educational experiences.  Watching others do the same or similar things, messing it up, and correcting their mistakes can also be turned into your own little experience.  After all, what you’re after is the knowledge and the awareness that the entire mistake-making process gives, not the mistake itself.

If you’re planning to take up an activity but are afraid of making mistakes, try joining a support or an interest group.  Find other people with similar interests and activities, people who can give you advice and their own stories and lessons from their own failures.  That’s the way to go because you reap the benefits yet spare yourself from the trouble of failing and then consequently making up for it.

You shouldn’t treat mistakes as extremely bad events, but you shouldn’t eagerly anticipate them either.  Rather, think of them as part of the educational experience called life.