It is easy to spend much of your days beating up on yourself for past mistakes. We analyse that relationship that failed and relentlessly review all the things we did wrong. Or we look at that business decision that cost us so much and dwell on the things we could have done right. Once and for all stop being so hard on yourself. You are a human being and human beings have been designed to make mistakes. As long as you don’t keep making the same errors and have the good judgment to let your past serve you, you will be on the right track. Accept them and move on. As Mark Twain wrote, “we should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. It will never sit down on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also it will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”
Coming to the realisation that we all make mistakes and that they are essential to our growth and progress is liberating. We lost the need to be perfect and adopt a saner way of viewing our lives. We can begin to flow through life the way a mountain stream flows through a leafy forest, powerfully yet gracefully. We can finally be at peace with our true nature.
An excellent way to raise to a higher level of enlightenment and personal wisdom is to make a list of the 10 biggest mistakes you have made in your life on the left - hand side of a page within your journal. Then, on the right hand side, write down the corresponding lessons you have learned from every mistake and the benefits that actually flowed into your life as a result of those so - called failures. You will soon see that your life would not be as rich and colourful without the mistakes of your past. So be gentler to yourself and see life for what it really is: a path of self - discovery, personal growth and lifelong learning.
Excerpt from Who Will Cry When You Die by Robin Sharma, www.robinsharma.com