“Learn from your mistakes!”

You’ve heard it all your life, but how many of you truly listened to that statement? How many times have you really fucked something up and actually learned from it? Rather, how many times have you done something wrong and blamed it on something else?  The difference between growing and staying stagnant is the ability to admit to your mistakes and learning from them.

Exercise personal responsibility.

It’s hard, really, to accept responsibility for anything. I know I’ve had a lot of trouble with this and still do to some degree. Thing is that, unless it was absolutely out of your control, you’ve played some part in what you screwed up on. This doesn’t mean you should put yourself on some endless guilt trip because that won’t solve anything. Instead, accept and admit that you did mess up.

I had a lot of trouble accepting a lot of things that I did wrong with my ex-girlfriend. I always pinned the blame on her for us breaking up but I never stopped to realize that I was fucking up as well. It’s easy to blame someone else but you get to the root of the problem once you objectively look at something.

Yes, she fucked up and made mistakes. A lot of them, in fact. And so did I. Had I stopped being stubborn and ate my pride a little, maybe we would still be together. Regardless, this was an extremely important and valuable life lesson that I needed to learn and it’s helped me grow.

Evaluate what you did wrong.

So now that you’ve admitted that you did something wrong, what exactly did you do wrong? This is when you should sit down and analyze. Playback the event and see what you could have done alternatively.

Many people would disagree about replaying bad events in your mind, and although I agree to a certain extent, I believe that replaying your mistakes helps you realize your wrongs. It’s painful, yes, but I believe that it’s necessary.

Once you’ve pinpointed the moment(s) where things went to hell, REMEMBER THEM. That purpose of you screwing up is so that you..

DON’T do it again

That is why we mess up. In fact, it’s okay to make mistakes, providing we learn from them. Growing up, we fuck up daily and we learn important things such as how to deal with girls and how to cope with making mistakes. The point, however, is to NOT do it again.

It’s very tempting to make the same mistakes over and over again. In fact, most things take us about a million times before we realize that we’re going in circles. I used to make the same mistakes with girls all the damn time as I was growing up, and it took me until I was in college to realize that I’m fucking up. I evaluated my mistakes and haven’t made (most of) them since. Can you guess how successful I’ve been after my realization?

DON’T beat yourself up

Earlier when I mentioned acceptance, I talked about really learning to admit that you screwed up. I do believe that we have control over a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean we realize it all the time. Remember, it’s totally okay to make mistakes. EVERYBODY makes mistakes. What you need to do is stop sulking about it. You can’t change the past and no matter how much you wish or pray, the past will be the past. Instead, focus on what you DO have control over and that’s THE FUTURE.

I used to beat myself up for every little fucking thing that went wrong. Break ups, financial problems, even when I failed my first road test. I soon began to realize that this does nothing but kill my self esteem and optimism and I opted to just deal with it. You shouldn’t be too apathetic about it but don’t let it bog you down either. Find a nice, happy medium. The mistakes that affect you somehow are usually the ones that get fixed first.

Remember, it’s ABSOLUTELY okay to make mistakes. However, in order to truly grow, you must evaluate your mistakes and LEARN FROM THEM. When you’re put into a similar situation and instead take an alternative action, you’ll know you’ve learned.