Mistakes - have you made any?

Have you ever made a mistake? If yes, how did you feel once you found it was a mistake? If no, please read the first question again and reply honestly. J My take on mistakes is very simple. Everyone is going to make them. What is most important is for us to learn from our mistakes once we realize our folly.

Mistakes are definitely not the same thing as failure. You make a mistake, you feel bad but rebound having learnt something from the mistake. It wasn’t fun but definitely not the end of the world. But a failure is when you are at a point of no return and completely devasted.

Hence, mistakes are good as you have learned from them and now know what not to do the next time around. Large scale failures are bad (may sometimes lead to failures).

However, there is one thing worse than failures and that is never trying anything new. Many people I know are extremely risk averse. They hate trying something new or different. They are already scared by the outcome that they choose not to go ahead trying. They also end up thinking a lot, a lot more than what is required. By the time they are through thinking and start executing (if at all, they reach that stage), it becomes obsolete.

Such a situation is bad. This just reinstates the fears of the conservatives and further reduces the person’s confidence. That would definitely be the end of any type of trying.

If one has any new ideas, they should just try it out as soon as possible. If not in a big way, at least in a small way. If it works out, expand else it provides an opportunity to re-group and make changes before re-initiating it in a big way. But if one doesn’t try, one would never know!

As John Greenleaf once said – “Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’” After all, no one would like to have any regrets at the end of it all.