Whether you learn from a failed business, a failed relationship. or just some random mistake that someone else makes, it really does pay to learn from other people’s mistakes without needing to make your own. Some people do learn best from their own mistakes, but why not avoid the trouble by watching what others do?
While there is some good to learning from your own mistakes, and some people prefer to learn that way, you may be able to save yourself some time and heartache by learning from the things that happen to others.
Look At The Cost
Look at the cost of a mistake in your life or in your work. There can be many different costs, not all of them monetary. A mistake in a relationship could lose you friends or credibility, rather than money, and it takes much longer to earn back trust than it does to earn back money.
If you make a mistake in business it could also lead to the loss of more than just money. You could lose customers or employees, which costs you time and sales. But mainly, look at how much money a mistake costs, whether it’s the cost of the supplies it took to make the mistake or the lost sales caused by the mistake.
Visualize Yourself In The Situation
If you think that you can’t learn from another person’s mistakes, you may be able to use a visualizing technique in order to put yourself in their position and see what would happen to you if you made that mistake. Just don’t use the teenager reasoning of, “Just because it happened to them doesn’t mean it will happen to me.” That’s just asking for more trouble.
If you are starting a business, or even a new relationship. look at the other unions around you. What makes them successful and what tore them apart if they didn’t last? Take time to do some research so that you can put yourself on the right path to a better experience without mistakes that you could have avoided by just being observant
Make Better Choices
You can make better choices in everything that you do, it’s just a matter of exhibiting a little willpower and some intelligence to know that if you follow the same path as someone else it is pretty likely you’ll find yourself in the same situation they ended up in. If you put all of your eggs in one basket you may end up with a dozen broken eggs rather than a tasty breakfast omelet.
Everyone needs to make mistakes at some point in life, but you don’t have to make your own in order to learn. And, when you do make a mistake, know that you just might be helping someone else avoid making the same mistake.
When you do make a mistake, don’t let it stop you from striving to create a successful business, or a successful relationship. Learn from it and move on.
