Learning from mistakes is not that easy

By Lionel Wijesiri

I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. - Thomas A. Edison

Every industry, craft, trade and profession has its own traditional wisdom that will hide you safe and out of trouble, by keeping you inside the box. If you’re going to start thinking ‘outside the box’, you’re going to have to ignore the unwritten rules of traditional wisdom. Do this and you’ll immediately be told that you’re “not doing it right”. And sadly, the new idea you’re attempting to carry out probably won’t work the way you had hoped. You won’t enjoy victory, but you will gain an education.

Most people would crawl back inside the box and quit trying. Maybe, not you, because you will try again and fail again. Then you’re a loser, a non-conformist, a problem child, and possibly become unemployed. This is what they call hardship.

You try again... limited success. Now you’re a tinkerer who won’t leave things alone. You try again and again... limited improvement. No one calls you anything now because no one is paying attention. You keep on trying... major breakthrough. Now you’re an innovator and everyone wants to swim in your pool!

George Washington was a loyal British subject who decided the king was wrong. The rest is history. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a form of government that Winston Churchill - on the floor of the House of Commons - would later call “the worst form of government ever created, except for all the others.” Abraham Lincoln violated millennia of traditional wisdom when he won the war, but refused the victor’s spoils, saying instead, “With malice toward none, with charity for all... let us bind up the nation’s wounds...” (2nd inaugural address)

Perhaps, Teddy Roosevelt said it best. Speaking of the choices and consequences we face daily as we improvise our way through life, he said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Psychological study

What do all these mean? “Often mistaken, never in doubt.” That wry phrase describes us all more than we’d like to admit. The psychological study of misconceptions shows that all of us possess many beliefs that are flawed or flat-out wrong - and also that we cling to these fallacies with remarkable persistence. Especially when our previous beliefs (even though faulty) have proved useful to us, and when they appear to be confirmed by everyday experience, we are reluctant to let them go.

For anyone that never discovers a deeper self-identity, based not on lack of mistakes, but on lack of courage, compassionate intelligence, commitment and creativity, life is a scary place made safe only by never getting into trouble, never breaking rules and never taking the risks that their hearts tell them they need to take.

There are four kinds of mistakes:

* Stupid: Absurdly dumb things that just happen. For example, dropping your pizza leftovers on your neighbour’s fat cat.

* Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable, but that your sequence of decisions have made inevitable. For example, running out of food at your birthday party because you didn’t anticipate the number of guests.

* Involved: Mistakes that are understood, but require effort to prevent. For example, regularly arriving late to work.

* Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to be avoided next time. Examples are making tough decisions that bring bad results.

Learning

Learning from mistakes that fall into the first two categories (Stupid and Simple) is easy, but shallow. Once you recognise the problem and know a better way to handle it, you should avoid similar mistakes. In some cases, you’ll realise that no matter what you do, once in a while, you’ll do stupid things.

The third type, Involved Mistakes, require significant changes to avoid. These are mistakes we tend to make through either habit or nature. However, since change is much harder than we admit, we often commit the same mistakes again and again instead of making the tough changes needed to avoid them.

Some feel that to agree to change means there is something wrong with them. “If I’m perfect, why would I need to change?” Since they need to protect their idea of perfection, they refuse change. (Or possibly, even refuse to admit they did anything wrong).

This, however, is a trap. Refusing to acknowledge mistakes or the tendency to make similar mistakes is a refusal to acknowledge reality. If you can’t see the gaps, flaws or weaknesses in your behaviour, you’re forever trapped in the same behaviour and limitations you’ve always had, possibly since you were a child.

The biggest lesson to learn in Involved Mistakes is that you have to examine your own ability to change. Some types of change will be easier for you than others and until you make mistakes and try to correct them, you won’t know which they are.

Complex Mistakes are complicated. The more complicated the mistake you’ve made, the more patient you need to be. There’s nothing worse than flailing around trying to fix something you don’t understand. You’ll only make things worse.

Professionals such as journalists, police detectives and doctors try to get as many perspectives on situations as possible before taking action (policemen use eyewitnesses, journalists use a variety of sources, doctors use various tests, scientific studies use large sample sizes).

They know that human perception, including their own, is highly fallible and biased by many factors. The only way to obtain an objective understanding is to compare several different perspectives. When trying to understand your own mistakes in complex situations, you should work in the same way.

Your situation

Even if no one was within 50 yards when you crashed your best friend’s BMW into your neighbour’s living room, talking to someone else gives you the benefit of their experience being applied to your situation. By describing what happened, you are forced to break down the chronology and clearly define the sequence of events. They may ask you questions that unearth important details you didn’t notice before. There may have been more going on (Did the brakes fail? Did you swerve to avoid your neighbour’s daughter?) than you, consumed by your emotions about your failure, realised. Each person will emphasise different aspects of the situation based on their skills, biases and circumstances, getting you closer to a complete view of what took place.

As you put together the sequence of events, you’ll recognise that mistakes initially categorised as complex eventually break down in to smaller mistakes. The painted over crack was avoidable, but happened anyway (Stupid). Was there a system in place for avoiding these mistakes? (Simple). Were there unaddressed patterns of behaviour that made that system fail? (Involved). Once you’ve broken down a Complex Mistake, you can follow this advice on making changes.

No amount of analysis can replace your confidence in yourself. When you’ve made a mistake, especially a visible one that affects other people, it’s natural to question your ability to perform next time.

The best you can do is study the past, practise for the situations you expect and get back in the game. Studying the past should help broaden your perspective. You want to be aware of how many other smart, capable, well-meaning people have made similar mistakes to the one you made, and went on to even bigger mistakes, and bigger successes, in their life.