23 Oct The importance of making mistakes
Mistakes are underestimated. We are all afraid of making them and of living with the consequences of a negative judgment derived from failure.
In reality, the old and famous saying “you learn from your mistakes” is one of self-knowledge’s cornerstones. This is one of the reasons why we should allow our children to make mistakes from an early age and encourage their desire to try new things.
We should teach our little ones that if we want to get excellent results we must first try and that this could lead to inevitable mistakes, whether they happen when we are alone, in public, or when we are fully trained but the conditions at that moment lead us to negative result: practice makes perfect.
Often, when we look at famous or public figures as role models, we have the tendency to think that they can do no wrong, because they are well advised, elected, or because they are just plain lucky.
But the reality of things is that there is great commitment, a lot of planning, a great expenditure of energy in training technical and mental skills, and great dedication behind their success. This applies to everything from sports, professional and personal life, and wherever there is a prestigious objective one wants achieve.
Michael Jordan, one of the greatest sportsmen of all time, had this to say about his own personal experience:
“I may have scored eleven winning baskets on the buzzer and another seventeen at less than ten seconds from the end. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”