How to really learn from mistakes

Oct. 23, 2006
By: Chandresh Bhardwaj

Everyone knows that mistakes happen much more often when you rush through tasks, such as not stopping to double-check your exam, leading you to make careless errors. Similarly, there are no shortcuts toward attaining a positive attitude. The more you try to hurry, the worse the situation becomes.

There are so many incidents that result in disasters because of the desire to go too fast. Have you ever seen trees grow in a couple of hours or days? Do you ever see flowers blooming right after you sow the seed? There's a reason why it took you 19 years to reach college and didn't just sign up for a university as an eight-year-old? Some things in life need time and discipline to grow properly. All you need to have is patience.

If you start working hard right now to build a positive attitude, it will definitely take a good amount of time to complete. First, you must clean up all the big heaps of garbage before putting the good stuff in it. When you move into a new house, you clean every everything to make sure that you live in a hygienic and clean place. Similarly, you need to clean your negative mind in order to put positive thoughts into it. Your mind is used to consuming negativity, therefore, you must accept that it will take a little while to adjust to this new "diet."

Let's suppose you are going somewhere by car. After you have driven for five hours, you realize that you ended up in the wrong place and need to go back. Your next step would be to turn the car around and go back to the starting point. If it took you five hours to reach the wrong destination, it will probably take you the same amount of time, or even a little more, to reach the correct destination. In the same way, it will take your mind some time to reach its correct place. Keep at it, as strong desire and discipline are the only real shortcuts.

Can books on positive attitude automatically change the mind? Before I answer this, let me ask you one question: suppose you want to learn how to swim, so you sit by a river all day and never dive into it. Will you know how to swim by the end of the day? Another example could be that you buy a book titled Learn to Swim in 30 days, and assume that reading the book will make you good swimmer. I think you get my drift.

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