My friend, Mickey Mellen shared a blog, You begin to fail when you deny your mistakes. I agree with him that nobody enjoys making a mistake but a mistake can have an unexpected benefit.  He mentions people that prefer people that have made mistakes. At first, I thought that was odd but I have to agree with him. People that make mistakes and own them have a different outlook on just about every part of their lives.

He is right that mistakes oftentimes come to the learning we need for accomplishment, reaching our goals, and changing the direction of our lives. I wish more of us were not afraid to try new things so the learning that comes from the mistakes makes us better. There is the key, be willing to learn from our mistakes.

The reference he makes to a quote from Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset“, points to how we truly fair at the things we do or attempt:

“John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren’t a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them.”

Two of the hardest things a person has difficulty doing are admitting when they are wrong and admitting when they have made a mistake to another person and even to themself.

I hope I never begin to hide the mistakes I have made and just pretend they didn’t happen. While the consequences are not removed from the mistake, the growth that comes from it makes you so much stronger and better. Hiding mistakes and pretending they didn’t happen may be easy in the short term because you’ll look better but in the long term, it never works. Failing to learn the lesson that could make you far better should never be something we avoid. Are the lessons easy to learn? Some are and others take time.