Avoid The Same Mistakes And Problems

Imagine you appear for the final exam of a Medical Degree, and you fail the exam. What happens? You do not qualify as a medical professional.

So, You go back to the drawing board. You try to figure out what areas of knowledge you have a gap in your understanding. You prepare and upgrade your knowledge, and when you get to the exam the second time, you apply the additional knowledge gained from the experience of failing the exam. Hopefully, you pass the exam the second time.

If you fail the second time too, what does it mean? That either you did not seek to improve your understanding of subjects or did not apply what you learned in the exam.

For as long as you do not upgrade your knowledge and don’t apply your learning, you will continue encountering failure.

The same principle to pass an exam applies in our lives practically. Many of us often experience repeated failures in some areas. It’s like the same problems keeping following us wherever we go and in whatever we choose to do.

• You may have a knack for getting into trouble with your relationships repeatedly.
• At work, you may be encountering repeated problems when dealing with day to day issues.
• You may repeatedly be losing money in the stock market.
• It may be that only you are attracting customers in your portfolio who are trouble-makers looking to litigate.
• Despite your best intentions, people around you seem to misinterpret and misunderstand whatever you are doing.

When we encounter problems, our default mindset is that “I am ok,” and the issue is with the other people or the environment.

If a similar type of problem or failure seems to be dogging you repeatedly, don’t try looking for answers outside. Like the student who has to get back to his books and prepare to pass the exam, you have to look at what lessons you can learn from the problem and apply those to your life to prevent the problem from recurring. 

I have developed this mental model to understand how we gain knowledge from experiences and how it becomes good judgment when we apply that knowledge.

We will graduate and grow in life only when we learn from the problems and failures we encounter and not get stuck repeating the same patterns. We need to analyze our failures and mistakes and apply the insights in our actions to avoid making the same mistakes. In a way, we need to upgrade our problems too. That is the essence of growth.

Gopal Gaur Das, a renowned life coach and motivational speaker puts a humorous twist on this idea.

Knowledge and Make-up are similar. Both have value only when applied. One changes the way we look and the other the way we live.

Your problems, challenges, and failures are an amazing source of learning and experiential knowledge. If you don’t take the learning and apply it in your life, you will get stuck in a cycle of repeating mistakes. 

Good Judgement happens only when we apply the lessons learned from the mistakes committed and experience gained.