Welcome to the world of mistakes. Have you ever done any mistakes in life? I am sure everyone has messed up and did mistakes in life. What is a mistake? A mistake is an action or decision that turns out to be incorrect, unwise. It often results from a lack of empathy, knowledge, or misunderstanding. Mistakes are a natural part of learning and growth, offering opportunities to reflect, adapt and improve moving further in life.
Mistakes can be small or big, repeated or one-time mistakes. Small mistakes have minimal consequences or no consequences, while big mistakes sometimes can have extreme consequences in life. Sometimes, a mistake made can be so big that it can result in a door getting shut for the entire life. If a mistake is big and repetitive, it is obvious that to correct that same mistake, you need to put in a lot of effort for long time with patience and hope for the best.
I have made so many mistakes in my life. Some of them results from a lack of empathy resulting in a lot of pain to the other person in my life. I did not realise that I was doing mistakes and that is the scariest thing. Without having the knowledge and realisation, it is extremely hard to improve and get better. Then I made a BIG and REPETITIVE mistake in my life. I went into a zone mentally which transformed me into a completely different person. I lost myself. I blamed others for my life. Never realised the value of accountability and the importance of it. Very rarely, events happen in your life and circumstances shapes you to become a person that you cannot even imagine in a negative manner. I wish I had more empathy to feel what others felt and I responded to them in a kinder way to them. I had lived in guilt for long time enough to realise that nothing is going to change that happened in the past. I eventually managed to escape from that guilt and started working on myself. I have been better but not 100%.
The stages of a mistake can be broken down into following phases:
- IGNORANCE
Ignorance is lack of awareness or understanding or sometimes having both the awareness and understanding leads to an error in action.
- ACTION
This is the stage where mistake takes place. When you decide to act on a thought, your actions give birth to a mistake.
- REALISATION
This is where a person (I) realized that I have made the mistake. What truly matters is the time taken by the person from action to realization. Shorter the time, better it is. More the time, worse it gets.
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This is where a person (I) admits and accepts the responsibility for the mistake.
- CORRECTION
This is the stage where a person starts taking steps to fix the mistake, if possible. Some mistakes are irreversible, but most mistakes are reversible and can be corrected.
- LEARNING
Learning from the mistakes and avoid repeating the mistakes in future.
- GROWTH
Applying the learning to improve and become a better version of yourself.
I am not proud of my mistakes, but after the realisation I have learned a lot and have become a better version of myself. I do not think I would have become the person I am today if I had not made mistakes in my life. Living in the guilt feels like squashed under heavy stack of rocks. I struggled to breathe, think, and live. I realised that nobody can help me even if they wanted to. I had to help myself somehow. I had to pull myself out of that guilt. It has been an extremely difficult journey, but this difficult journey has taught me some valuable lessons.
If you have made mistakes in your life, it is OK. Do not repeat, but learn, and grow from it. You are not who you were a year ago, even three months ago. You are not your past. You have done stupid things but that is not YOU. You are YOU. You are the being that has learned from the mistakes. Do not let guilt define who YOU are. You are much better than that. If you made a mistake, do not let anyone take that mistake from you, that is your mistake. Own that mistake with pride and dig deep into that mistake and learn and grow from that. Your mistakes are the steps on your ladder of your own life journey. Keep climbing that ladder of life. It is easier said than done, but it possible. Do not be scared to make mistakes but try to not repeat the mistake. This is also a big-time reminder for me.
To anyone I have hurt, I am SORRY. I do mean that. This is coming sincerely from my heart.