Before handing back a very challenging Spanish test, my daughter’s teacher gave them a handout entitled “Eight Reasons to Celebrate Mistakes.”  While my daughter and her classmates were not so amused, I, as her mother, appreciated the intention.  We live in a culture that values success and winning so much so that we lose sight of the process of learning and put tremendous pressure on ourselves to always be “right.”  When we put so much emphasis on avoiding mistakes, we lose sight of the learning and can become paralyzed, afraid to take any chances.

I wish we had a better word than “mistake.”  According to the dictionary, it means “an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.”  I often wish we could call them “learning efforts” to avoid the judgment.  Especially when it comes to the bigger efforts of living, such as talking a new job, moving to a new place, or ending a relationship.  How often I hear people berate themselves for making such a “huge mistake,” discounting the courage of taking a chance and the experience obtained from trying something new.

So often we value and applaud “change” but set ourselves up by expecting that every change has to be for the better.  If things don’t work out as planned and hoped for, we often go beyond disappointment to the burden of shame.  How painful that is and often how unnecessary.  Sometimes we do make mistakes that require us to apologize or even feel guilty or ashamed, but these are situations that involve moral failures, or true lapses in our judgment, when we act on impulse or in a selfish manner.  These are the times we most certainly must make amends and acknowledge our error.  But I often see people generalize the notion of a mistake to a choice that was made with the best of intention.

In order to avoid mistakes of living, we would have to avoid taking any chances.  And the point of the hand out the teacher was trying to make was that learning happens through mistakes.  We try and we get feedback.  Feedback is how we learn not only Spanish, but also about ourselves.  It is the feedback that is the key to self awareness.  Sometimes we  try something new to see if we can expand our capacities, such as building the stamina to climb the mountain, or go to a group to learn how to tolerate the desire to drink.  And other times we try something new to see if it is a better fit for us, such as dating a new person or taking a job in a new environment.  Regardless of the outcome, which is seldom so black and white as being “right or wrong,”  we grow and change through the effort.  If we can avoid the embarrassment and the judgment, we can embrace the learning and the experience of expanding ourselves.

I love that the Spanish teacher walks her talk.  She gives the students a chance to re-submit their test with new answers.  The point is to use the feedback.  When we see the player score the touchdown or the musician accept the grammy, we only see the tip of the iceberg.  Ask anyone who has had success to tell you about the effort it took to get there and the non-successes it took along the way.  And then, after their moment of fame, they have to go out and start again, putting themselves out there with the chance that things won’t go as well the next time.  Learning to live with risk is the only way we can move forward.  So, instead of hanging our head in response to a mistake, why not celebrate the chance to learn?