People who struggle to be successful frequently repeat the same mistakes over and over. The habit of repeating mistakes can easily be corrected. All you have to do is develop a weekly habit of examining your mistakes and coming up with better alternatives for the next time.
Just as a chain is limited by the strength of its weakest link, our success is limited by the quality of our worst decisions. Eliminating mistakes is a powerful way to become more successful in life.
Try this process for minimizing the prevalence of your mistakes:
1. Set aside some time once a week.
Have a specific time each week that you use to look back and examine your week. Schedule it into your week just like anything else of high importance.
2. Look back at all the important events from your week.
Consider every important interaction and decision you made during the week.
Reflect on your interactions with your family and the decisions you made related to them. How did you handle your kids? Did you have positive interactions with your partner?
Think about your financial decisions. Include your spending and how you managed with paying your bills. Investing decisions can be included, too.
What happened at work? How was your presentation? Did you hire or fire someone? Are you feuding with someone? Were you ever late for work? Did your boss yell at you?
Examine your health. Did you eat nutritiously this week? Did you sleep well? Did you get enough exercise?
Include anything else that seems important. Contemplate everything that’s important to you, including anything that involves your friends and neighbors.
3. Ask yourself what you could have done better.
Where did you make mistakes? Go back over your entire week and consider how each situation could have been managed more effectively. It’s similar to asking yourself what you would do if you could go back in time and live that experience all over again. Odds are that you’ll have the opportunity to experience a similar situation in the future. Most of our lives are filled with routines and habits. There’s not a lot of novelty from week to week.
4. Look for trends in your behavior.
We’re all prone to making similar mistakes again and again. Even in completely different situations, we tend to make the same sorts of mistakes. Are you assuming too much? Are you too impatient? Are you inconsiderate? Are you acting without getting enough information? Are you ignoring your family? If you can correct a trend in your decision-making, you can eliminate a lot of future errors.
5. Visualize yourself handling the situation in a more effective manner.
Try to find solutions to challenging situations. Then, see yourself in the same situation, only this time you’ll take a new approach. Visualize things working out well. This step is super powerful, so avoid skipping it. A few minutes can really make a huge difference.
6. Think about what you did well, too!
Recognize those things and resolve to continue responding in the same way to those situations. Keep the good stuff and change the bad.
Your success in life will be enhanced by leaps and bounds if you simply take the time to eliminate your mistakes. Each week, you’ll become more and more effective as you make fewer and fewer mistakes. Success isn’t all about doing spectacular things. It’s just as much about not making spectacular blunders.
Avoid making the same mistake twice. Recognize your shortcomings each week and banish them from your life.