The Price of Failure
There is no doubt that everything costs something. Nothing is really free. But how much can a mistake cost you? I’m sure you’re probably already guessing that I am going to say something like “Well, there’s no way to tell because every mistake is different and has different costs depending on what the mistake is…” . While this is true, that’s not really what I want to say.
The True Price
Actually, the true price is the tuition of the knowledge gained. It’s an interesting parallel when we think about it. Someone who attends college pays tuition so they can learn from the experience of others (Professors, books, other students…). Mistakes are the tuition we pay when we make a mistake. How can we maximize our efforts to minimize our learning costs? Get intelligent and get wise.
“Intelligence is the ability to learn from your mistakes. Wisdom is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others.” – Anonymous
Intelligence
What do I mean by intelligence? Well, making a mistake gains us nothing. We have to LEARN from the mistake so we don’t make it again. I know I know. You’re saying, D’uh everyone knows that. I’m sure that on the surface everyone does basically comprehend that this principle makes sense. The trouble is, and be honest with yourself, how often have you made the same mistake more than once? I know I have a LOT!
So, your next questions is coming… How do I make sure I am learning from my mistakes? Here are 4 steps I use to maximize my learning.
1. I Own It
I admit I made the mistake and try to move on to step 2 as quickly as possible!
“More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them.”
2. Choose My Focus
I have personally found this one hard, because so many times I compare myself to others and tell myself that those other people wouldn’t have been so dumb as me. This is inherently damaging because I end up shifting my focus from learning to self deprecation. Life is too short and personal energy is too important to waste on beating ourselves up. Texans say the following, “It doesn’t matter how much milk you spill as long as you don’t lose the cow!”
So in the end, I choose to focus on learning and choose to not waste my energy on unproductive activities like self doubt or beating myself up.
3. Reflection
I think I am the most guilty of this one. I make a mistake, identify I’m not perfect and tell myself I’ll never do it again, and then move on with my life… Except I missed one of the MOST IMPORTANT PARTS! Life experience lessons hurt. We don’t want to experience them more than once. But if we sweep it under the rug and don’t spend some time reflecting on what went wrong and how to avoid it we are doomed to repeat it again and again.
It is vitally important to pause and reflect on the mistake and really commit it to memory and the heart. Not the pain or the failure, but the lesson! I often ask myself:
How did I get into the situation?
How can I avoid the situation in the future?
If I cannot avoid it, how can I be better prepared for it?
What are the lessons I can take away from this experience?
How can I grow as a result?
(And my favorite) How can I share my lessons with others to help them avoid paying the tuition of this mistake?
4. Apply The Learning
The last step is to apply the learning to my life. I take the lessons that I reflected on and apply them to my daily routine. Lessons mean little if they are converted into a benefit. Depending on the lesson it may be simple to implement, or it may be a life changing commitment. I have made changes like starting to journal regularly so I can reflect on my lessons more easily and can look back on past reflections so I don’t forget them. I have also changed my eating habits greatly to reduce my cholesterol so I can prevent heart disease. (This is profound because I used to eat red meat for almost every meal, every day, for about 25 years!)
Whatever it is, by taking time to apply what I have learned I can reap the benefits of learning the lesson!
Wisdom
Earlier I shared the quote that intelligence is learning from our mistakes and wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. The fastest way to grow is gaining maximum experience with the least cost. If we can learn from the mistakes of others then we can prevent paying the full price ourselves. This is key to reducing the pain and suffering we our bound to live through by trying to do everything ourselves. So how do we learn from others?
Here are a few things worth considering.
Get a Mentor
Join a Group
Hang Out with the Right People
Read Daily
Leverage Technology
There are many levels to these ideas and there are a hundred more that can be found by doing a quick Google search. But the reason I like these is because there is a nice balance between self study and getting help from others. There is no question in my mind that if we hang out with people who are successful we will start to become successful. So hanging out with the right people, getting a mentor, and joining groups that are focused on the growth we are looking for will naturally help us move in the right direction.
“If you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
Reading daily and leveraging technology is easier today than ever before. Car University is always on while driving. (If you haven’t joined Audible yet, you’re missing out. Click Here to get two books Free on Audible.) Listen to Podcasts, listen to audio-books, listen to sermons. These are all available from a cell phone and can be easily used to convert your car into a personal growing machine.
Share Your Experience
I’ve said this for many years now, but don’t be selfish with the information you’ve learned. You paid a big price for the experience you’ve gained. If you’re anything like me, you wish someone would have warned you about the price your mistake would cost and would have shared their lessons before you had to experience them yourself. So why not share what you have learned to save others the pain of having to learn it themselves. I don’t know who said this quote, but I love it…
“I will take responsibility for the mistake but everyone else will take responsibility for getting the maximum education from the tuition I paid.”
I have used this quote on many occasions, but if you keep your mistakes to yourself and the lessons you learned from them, then others will have to pay that tuition for themselves. It’s not like a teacher is getting paid everytime someone learns these lessons. So why not share your experiences with others? It is up to the other person to get something from it, but they never will if we never share our experiences.
Want more on this topic? Check out these popular books:
The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (especially read the law of pain!)
Failing Forward (Failing doesn’t make you a failure!)
So, how are you going to apply this lesson to your life today? What is one thing you are going to do, starting right now, to maximize the wisdom I’m sharing with you from the tuition I paid?
I know, personally, I’m going to pull out my journal and start rereading my lessons from the past and see if there are any I’ve stopped following and restart them today!
