Learning to love your mistakes?

[DesolateImp96]

please help me to understand this. When I start to think about my mistakes I get really anxious and my stomach feels like a dumbbell in my body.

 

[tree]

You may be thinking something like this>

I *shouldn't* make mistakes.
I *should* be competent, adequate and achieving
in all important respects or else I am an inadequate, worthless person.

This sort of thinking could result in very uncomfortable feelings.

 

[DesolateImp96]

You may be thinking something like this>

I *shouldn't* make mistakes.
I *should* be competent, adequate and achieving
in all important respects or else I am an inadequate, worthless person.

This sort of thinking could result in very uncomfortable feelings.

Yes that’s 90% accurate to my mind. At work I feel like I’m in constant peril even though everyone else is looking “cool like a cucumber”

 

[Bolletje]

Accept that you will make mistakes, no matter how diligent you are. And that is okay. Everyone makes mistakes, no one scores 100% all the time. And as much as that sucks, the sooner you accept it, the better.

I'm not saying you should slack off or be sloppy at your job, I'm just saying you might want to stop beating yourself up over being human. I bet your coworkers worry too, but they're either better at hiding it, or have accepted that they make the occasional mistake.

We all eff up socially every now and then, and usually we're the only one that remember the ensuing awkwardness (forever engraved into your mind's eye...).

Making a mistake in your work sucks as well, although there are often fail-safes in place to prevent dire consequences. For instance, when I just started working as a medical doctor, I was worried 24/7 about accidentally killing people. But I'm not alone. There are watchful nurses taking care of the patients, ready to sound the alarm in case I miss something. There are farmacists reviewing my every prescription to make sure the dosage is correct and the person is not allergic. There are bosses reviewing my work. All of these things have made me less afraid. I still worry, occasionally, but at least it's not an all-consuming fear anymore.

 

[Mary Anne]

Unfortunately, the only way I seem to learn ANYthing is to make big mistakes. Every single day time! It’s so difficult to move past this fact, but at age 61, I doubt this will ever change.

 

[Tom]

Making mistakes can be good in one respect. If it makes you realize you are not perfect and therefore more understanding and tolerant of others when they make mistakes.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

It's not whether you make mistakes or not that's important.

It's having the right attitude to putting them right.

The quicker you admit that the better, I've found.

Especially when dealing with people in a job.

People expect you to 'fudge'

But the guy who admits the mistake,and puts it right doulbe wuick, that's the guy they will see who has integrity.

Fear of making mistakes can also prevent you from action.

Knowing in yourself that you can admit and correct, is on way to get over that inaction.

 

[Progster]

I can accept my mistakes, but I could never love them.

 

[LucyPurrs]

The one thing I'd add to what Fridge said above is the key is to try and learn from your mistakes so you don't repeat them over and over again. But yeah everyone makes mistakes so it might help to view them as a learning opportunity.

 

[Catana]

Mistakes aren't to be either hated or loved. They're to be learned from, however many times it takes. Sometimes you have to make the same mistake over and over before you really grasp what the problem is and can correct it. It isn't a moral failing, or a measure of your intelligence.

 

[clg114]

The only people who do not make mistakes are people who are not doing anything. Making mistakes is one of the most important ways we learn.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

The only people who do not make mistakes are people who are not doing anything.

That's my loophole.

 

[Judge]

While I don't "love" my mistakes, I try to see them in the big picture as a "personal profit center".

Given that most successes in life are built on a foundation of failure to begin with. It's nice when something works out the first time around, but you don't learn anything in the process. Failure is the ultimate learning process if or when you persevere enough to overcome whatever that failure involved.

Success without struggle is often something people inevitably take for granted.

 

[Sozdatelniza]

Before I found out I'm high functional autistic I hated myself for constantly doing mistakes. I had big problems in spatial cognition or "careful listening". Or saying something so that people surmise that I'm not intelligent at all (of course, it's no true conclusion).

Knowing I'm autistic helped me a lot. Pre-eminently to accept myself how I am.
Indisputably I still get get thoughts like "Am I really that terrible and unadapted person?". I know they can't disappear and never appear in my head.

But I know - I have to work with it.

 

[tree]

It seems apparent, to me,
that loving your mistakes isn't what's needed.

What is useful is to not hate yourself for making them.

Then do what you can to correct any you have made.

 

[OlLiE]

the past = things that cannot be changed, hence if you can't change it don't worry about it

the future = the consequences of things that cannot be changed, worrying won't improve your future decision making, so don't waste energy on it

in conclusion: in my opinion worrying is self indulgence, don't waste time and energy on it, use that time and energy for improving your future

 

[Nervous Rex]

Welcome to the human race.

That's what a counselor told me when I bemoaned all my faults and problems. When I think about it now, it's one of the kindest things I've ever heard, and I say it to others any time they feel bad about their own shortcomings. We are all human; we all make mistakes. Obsessing over them seems to be a very aspie thing to do.

Just last night, I heard this bit of counsel given to a friend of mine: You will find that trying to be perfect is a bigger burden than your shortcomings.

We have to look for a middle ground - always perfecting, but never perfect.

 

[AO1501]

In my experience, the mistakes I make are sometimes cognitive - I get an idea wrong - but mostly the result of autism-related 'deficits'. Two things impact me constantly, motor control, so I can't type, often can't even readily get the right button in an elevator, and poor short term memory, so I can't recall the immediate past.

All the other things that define my behaviours are things I can and generally have found ways to work around, but those two I can't do anything about.

Mistakes I make as a result are simply inevitable, and while it is certainly the case that others might observe me and think I am clearly defective in some way (a phrase I have heard a lot), I know these are just part of being me.

I used to get upset, because I didn't know that I was on the spectrum, so kept trying to fix myself, getting more and more frustrated that nothing worked, making me agree that in the end, I really must be defective. But once I knew, I realised these are just the kind of mistakes I will make, and to focus my attention instead on things I can change, or improve, which is far more to do with the application of cognitive skills.

 

[DesolateImp96]

After reading all of the responses it still feels alien to accept that we’re human. How long did it take for that rational to “sink in”

 

[Kirsty]

The only people who do not make mistakes are people who are not doing anything.

The people who are not doing anything are also making a mistake.