Being Point

Tag: mistakes

  • How Would You Assess Your Ability To Use Hindsight In Favorable And Useful Ways?

    The benefits of hindsight have generally to do with learning from mistakes and the purported ability to develop complete understanding (as in 20-20 hindsight) of the past.

    What happens if we’re wearing less than perfect “lenses” as we review the past? I’ve known many people who carry what I call a “cup of worry” that needs to be filled up anytime its level goes down. The phrase “it’s always something” applies to this world view.

    To the extent that we view the past from, for example, the habitual perspective of being a victim of circumstances, or not having sufficient understanding, or a feeling that “that’s just my luck”: all of those “lenses” of hindsight will be guaranteed to bring us down.

    How would you assess your ability to use hindsight in favorable and useful ways? Are you closer to 20-20, or has your hindsight been negatively impacted by patterns of understanding the world? Where did you learn those patterns?

    What steps can you take to more consistently learn well from the past? How can the history that you are assessing be used to your advantage? Have you noticed that your ability to learn from the past has improved or diminished over the last few years?

  • “It May Be Difficult To Learn From Our Mistakes” ~ Diane Halpern

    Not everyone shares the same sanguine view of hindsight. Author Diane Halpern is downright contrarian and writes:

    “Hindsight is of little value in the decision-making process. It distorts our memory for events that occurred at the time of the decision so that the actual consequence seems to have been a ‘foregone conclusion.’ Thus, it may be difficult to learn from our mistakes.”

    This is the opposite of the 20-20 school of thought. What is your opinion? Have you observed hindsight mis-serving you or anyone else? Perhaps “selective memory” describes something less than perfect vision about the past?

    If you wanted to have your memory be most useful by truly learning from your mistakes, how would you use it? What kinds of things would you focus on? What habits and ways of looking at and evaluating events would you put your attention on? How can you make hindsight and remembering the best it can be so that you can avoid or minimize old mistakes?

  • Is Hindsight Truly 20-20?

    The old saying is that hindsight is 20-20, but is it really? Perhaps in an ideal world, we’d learn from our mistakes so well that our analysis of what happened would be perfect – but life experience teaches that often the same kinds of analyses that produced the “mistake” in the first place are at work in almost any intended 20-20 examination of it.

    Be honest. Is your hindsight 20-20? There’s no question that we can learn from the past – and we often learn significant lessons. But 20-20? Consider that if you’ve been repeating the same mistake, odds are that your hindsight has not been 20-20.

    Where has your hindsight been 20-20 to the point that you not only understood what happened, but you took steps to remedy the flaws in the future? Do you consider “hindsight is 20-20” to be an accurate statement? Why or why not?

    If hindsight in general is 20-20, what about yours? Does it rise to that level? How do you know?

  • Has Beating Yourself Up Ever Been A Habit For You?

    Who among us has not made some huge mistake – or at least a mistake that felt huge at the time? Perhaps a careless comment, a unfortunate traffic matter, or misplacing something so that we cost ourselves or someone else some money.

    Often, our response has been to beat ourselves up – and to continue doing so until we feel that we have punished ourselves enough.

    Has beating yourself up ever been a habit for you? If so, how much does it continue to this day? What kind of value system do you think self-punishment is based upon; and why have we felt that it was useful or necessary?

    What is the difference between feeling genuine remorse and beating oneself up? How much punishment, if any, needs to accompany remorse and sincere regret for having made a mistake? What kinds of responses are kinder and more useful than beating yourself up?

  • Some Of The Key Indicators For Whether Or Not You Have Done Your Personal Best

    Some of the indicia of whether or not we have done our personal best include:

    Have we improved a situation both for ourselves and others?

    Have we grown by stretching ourselves beyond what is easy and convenient?

    Have we stopped and chosen where we want to focus our best efforts, all the while knowing that best efforts in one area are likely to result in less than best efforts in another?

    Lincoln said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”

    Being wiser each day, learning from mistakes, understanding hidden dynamics that impact our ability to act from our best selves:  how do you feel about these as indicators of doing your best?

  • The Freedom To Err Is Fundamental To All Freedoms

    This week, let’s consider freedom in as many different contexts as possible. Gandhi said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.”

    The freedom to experiment, to make choices and to make mistakes is foundational for other freedoms. Dogma opposes freedom. Yet, seemingly paradoxically, there can be tremendous freedom in profound commitment.

    How free are you? Not just in the abstract, but in reality: How free are you to live the life you desire? What impediments have there been to your freedom? Is it possible that the most significant detriments to our own freedom have been self-made?

  • Releasing Attachment to Wrongs and Starting Over

    So far this week, we’ve focused on our own starting over. Today, consider the wisdom of allowing others to start over with you.

    Everyone has made mistakes in life. It’s just a matter of degree, but . . . face it, no one escapes doing some really dumb things.

    We can assist others in their journeys by losing the attachment to past wrongs and saying, “The rest of my relationship with this person begins now.”

    Imagine what a difference that would make in business, family friend and romantic situations.

    Allowing others to start over means that you don’t hold their past performance against them. By giving them a clean slate:
    * Grudges disappear

    * Wounds heal

    * Harmony expands

    * Freedom grows

    This is not a “touchy-feely,” “lah-lah” strategy. Rather, it has highly practical outcomes. Life gets better! Results improve!

    Please think of some people whose conduct you can reframe in your mind as only in the past . . . and consciously allow them to start over. Breathe and observe the way you feel as you release the past and allow the present with nothing but possibilities.