Life can be great. Life can suck. Regardless of how yours is going right now, what we all can agree on is that our life is full of mistakes and misfortune. These are the building blocks of our journey. We learn more from mistakes and misfortunes than any success. Think about it. You make a mistake and you think about what you did wrong, why you did it wrong, what you should have done, and how you will do it the next time? You suffer a misfortune you think about why it happened to you, why couldn’t you have done something to prevent it, and how you are going to deal with this unforeseen situation? When you succeed at something and you simply move forward. You almost feel like it was supposed to occur. No time for revisiting anything, right? Understood. What I want to discuss is understanding the difference between the mistakes and misfortunes.
A mistake is an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong. Misfortune is an event or conjunction of events that causes an unfortunate or distressing result. The distinction between the two is important because the recovery and prevention methods for them are different. They shouldn’t be addressed in the same way because one, a mistake, has a huge ingredient that misfortune does not. That ingredient is you. Many of us make a mistake and play the victim as if it is a misfortune. This sets our recovery off on the wrong foot because we began asking the wrong questions. Why did this happen to me? Why couldn’t I have done something to prevent this? How am I going to deal with this unforeseen situation? You are making yourself a victim. This is a false stance. You made a mistake. The situation is now yours to deal with. This is the issue with the misidentification of these two. It works out just as bad the other way. You’ll be asking questions as if you had any control over what just happened to you. You are doing yourself a disservice. This may seem like you are giving yourself tough love or pushing through but it’s more like getting beat up by life then, looking in the mirror and punching it. You are already beat-up, now your hand is cut up, you have to clean up the glass, and oh, you have to replace the mirror. Don’t do it to yourself. That would be a misfortune compounded by a mistake. Do that sound familiar?
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This is what we do to ourselves and we do it way too much. We don’t recognize a mistake and waste the opportunity to get better as soon as possible. Playing the victim and not asking the right questions: What did I do wrong? Why did I do it wrong? What should I have done? How will I do it the next time? Answering these turns that mistake into a learning experience that will catapult you into a better you. You’ll then understand what a mistake can do for you and in turn, won’t be as afraid to make one. You know you’ll get something out of the situation either way. It’s a powerful mindset and helps in all aspects of life. We also fail to recognize misfortune and make it worse with the mistake of blaming ourselves, not approaching the situation as we should. We should ask: Why did this happen to me? Why couldn’t I have done something to prevent this? How am I going to deal with this unforeseen situation? Yes, you are the victim but we are not going to fold up in a ball and cry in the corner. We are going to build off of it. The first question is to assure this is a misfortune. The second is the take away the notion that you had any control over this situation. This makes it harder to blame or play the tough love game with yourself. The last question is to turn that misfortune into an igniter. How am I going to deal with this unforeseen situation? You make it a problem that you now have control of. It can be anything. How you deal with it is up to you. Give yourself the power. Give yourself a chance.
In closing, we need to be aware of mistakes and misfortunes. They occur in our life more than successes. If we can take them and weaponize them, we will set ourselves up to say “life is great” way more often than stating “life sucks.” We will fill in the void between our successes with learning experiences and igniters to keep us going. You can’t stop a person with this mindset from succeeding in life. Adopt it, try to spread it to everyone you care about. It’s the best gift you can give them. Happy holidays!
Food for thought…You do the dishes.
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