I think we give too much of importance to mistakes

“Failures are the stepping stones to success” – Did you say – what a cliched way to start an article? Well I couldn’t agree more. However, lets keep that aside for a moment now. I would still say, we certainly do give a lot of importance to mistakes, sometimes deservedly so and most times – Not so much!

I have been taught constantly never to make mistakes – If you make mistakes, they will haunt you for the rest of your life and hence you shouldn’t venture out. You should be safe, you should be in a place where nothing wrong was ever done by you. I know a few gentlemen like that and I appreciate them – very much. But if you would ask me if that was a way of life I would choose – I would rather say, I’d like to make my mistakes, learn from them to never repeat them again or atleast try not to.

Sometimes I guess the thought of not making any mistakes stands in the way of our success. If I ask you right now – How many of you would have done certain things if you felt that you could not go wrong? I am asking about the ones which you think – what if I would have, what if I could have?! Well, why is that you held yourself back? Was it the fear of accentuating the mistake? Was it the fear that it would lead to some other one? Was it that you wanted to be perfect, never to do any?

If you said your answer was the last one, I’d say – I think we give too much of importance to mistakes. Sometimes it is just a feedback mechanism that something in the process is not working right, we may just need to realign and rework on the strategy / plan / approach. Mistakes are pretty simple on their own, sometimes even if you follow the rule book word to word, you are bound to screw up and that is the beauty of it. That is where your true personality comes in over a rule book, only you will know  how to fix it and make it work, not the book. If it was that simple, a machine would naturally replace you. Someone beautifully said, it is not about the hits you take, it is about taking them and keep moving forward..

The question is…. Do we give too much of importance to mistakes?