Nouslife: How to learn from your mistakes

17 November 2006

How to learn from your mistakes - scottberkun.com

Just read a good/helpful article sent to my cohort by our subject tutor at Uni while we are on diagnostic teaching practice. I found it a good summary of a number of things that either I kind of knew already or which are good sensible observational advice. I found the last two particularly helpful, though. I really think that there is a good bit of wisdom in the idea of working a mistake over until you laugh at it. When you are at that point you have really detached it from your ego and grown past it. It is not, of course, the same kind of detachment from ego that is implied in refusing to take responsibility, for it has started with accepting responsibility. The refusal to accept responsibility is usually an ego defence borne of a suspicion of potential responsibility but the acknowledgement of the mistake is short-circuited by it being interpreted as a personal flaw and failing which is avoided because it threatens self- or other-esteem.

And that last checkslist item is so true: the desire not to repeat can actually be disabling. I would add that you are really over it when you don't over-compensate either. Anyway, here's the checklist.

The learning from mistakes checklist
* Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
* Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
* You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
* Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
* Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
* What information could have avoided the mistake?
* What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
* Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not?
* What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again?What kinds of change are difficult for you?
* How do you think you behavior should/would change in you were in a similar situation again?
* Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
* Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.