This week during my morning routine, I came across a fascinating meditation titled: The Art of Making Mistakes. It made me reflect a lot; I realized that the great lessons I learned in my life were because I made mistakes; they challenged me to become a better person.

To err also exercises resilience and perseverance. Nobody gets to experience if they don’t make mistakes, but the important thing is to understand the error and use it as an opportunity to get to know yourself better, to see the impact of your actions and your thoughts.

There’s a saying that I like a lot from Peter Jones: “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be afraid of not learning from them”.

Another dilemma that came to mind was the following: the smart ones learn from their mistakes, while the wise ones learn from the mistakes of others. With that in mind, I started to give more value to the teachers and masters of my life and started to ask them what were the mistakes they made and what they learned from them. I started this weekend by asking some Scout instructors during the camping activity I was participating in. It really works! I learned a lot.

Psychologists say that we should not punish or criticize mistakes because it is a natural attitude to seek knowledge and learn limits; this is very important when dealing with children. Even when it comes to a work team, trying to do and making mistakes should also not be criticized. If the person has made a good assessment, sought information, used the experience of others, and yet he has failed, it is time to sit down with him and find out where they have failed. In the plural, because in a team, nobody makes mistakes alone.

Accepting the error is simple and is done naturally. The problem is whether we lack self-criticism to understand where and why we went wrong. Be humble in your interactions because nothing is more stimulating than learning, acquiring knowledge, and mastering processes that lead us to solutions or answers. To err alone usually is painful, and it can be expensive. But making mistakes by surrounding yourself with the experiences, knowledge, and support of others can be uplifting. The experience of making mistakes must be constructive, never painful.