Instead of beating yourself up for your mistakes, learn from them

As the old saying goes — those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

To me, that's the one good thing about bad things happening — learning not to do it again. For instance, I'm sure most of us didn't learn not to touch a hot stove  because someone told us not to. No, we learned not to touch a hot stove because we touched it…and boy, did it hurt.

This morning, I searched for an hour for my keys. Instead of putting them back in my purse, where they should be, I apparently put them underneath the comforter on my bed. Of course, with that hour of searching under the couch and ever crevice of my apartment, I thought the worst. Maybe my cat ate them (highly unlikely, but she'll eat anything). And, worst of all, maybe I left them in the door overnight and someone stole them.

But I can tell you one thing — from now on I will be more careful. When I leave work tonight, the first thing I'm going to do is buy a key hanger to put right next to my door in my apartment. Then, every time I get home, this is where I will put my keys.

My point of this blog post is that, many times when we make a mistake (whether it's losing your keys or something more serious), we beat ourselves up. Trust me, I called myself a moron countless times this morning.

And I could have spent the rest of today dwelling on the mistake on made. But, instead, I thought to myself, "I can't do anything about it now." And as soon as I got into work (late, by the way), people started telling me where they left their keys. The fridge. The freezer. In a dog bowl. In a cereal box.

We all make mistakes. It's part of being human. So, whenever you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, instead think, "Well, I'm glad that happened because now, I'll try never to do it again."

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