There was an upperclassman at West Point who I was sure was the worst leader I had ever met. Then I met a commander in the Army that jumped to the top of the list.

But, it was not until I hit the corporate world that I met someone who, to this day, ranks at the top of this dubious list. They were all bad. But, I learned a lot from each of them.

We should all learn from our own mistakes.  We should own them and make changes.  We should also learn from the mistakes of others.

In my youth, I spent a lot of time judging the mistakes of others. Fortunately, I figured out that I had plenty of issues of my own when I looked in the mirror.  I had to get good at examining my own mistakes before I spent energy on the mistakes of those around me.

3 Steps Required To Learn From Your Mistakes

Self-awareness is the first step to life long growth. The second step to life long growth is humility. The third step is courage.

1.  Self-awareness

I must be able to look in the mirror and see myself for who I really am.

2.  Humility

I must be willing to acknowledge my weaknesses and failures.

3.  Courage

I must have the courage to change my behaviors in order to grow.

Years ago, I heard a speaker say,

“If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you are doomed to mediocrity.”

This is a statement I believe in and preach often. But, what if someone is good at what they do?

If someone is talented and of high character mistakes are still inevitable, but they may not be as frequent. If that is true, then the best learning tool available may not be my own mistakes, but someone else’s.

The mistakes of others are the best and most cost effective learning tools available to everyone. The mistakes of others are ubiquitous and rarely cause us pain…unless we ignore them!

3 Steps Required To Learn From The Mistakes Of Others

There is only one of me and there are thousands of people I interact with each year. The opportunities to learn from them are endless.

I can focus on people’s successes and only absorb some of the lessons of life. If I also learn from their failures, then my education will be more complete and greatly accelerated.

Situational Awareness is the first step to learning from others. Humility and courage are again the second and third steps though the application is different.

1.  Situational Awareness

I must be willing and able to examine the decisions of those around me. Too many people watch others stumble and thank God it did not happen to them.

If I want to grow, I need to pay attention! I need to find out as much as I can about the situation, their actions and the results of those actions in order to diagnose what they did wrong. Then I need to determine what I would do differently in a similar situation.

2.  Humility

It is critical to realize that if I want to grow, I must be humble enough to admit that I do not have it all together.

When I see someone else fall, judgment may be my initial instinct. But, that instinct will stunt my growth if I allow it to take over. I must avoid judgment and realize I am capable of making decisions as bad or worse than the ones I am evaluating.

This is truth! We are all CAPABLE of some tremendously bad choices. I have always found that as soon as I am arrogant enough to believe it couldn’t happen to me, it does.

Therefore, I must avoid the arrogance of judgment and assume the attitude of humility and look for where MY lesson is in another person’s failure.

3.  Courage

Again, I have to have the courage to change my behaviors. But, now I am changing my behaviors before a failure. Everything is still going reasonably well!

It takes courage to say it is time for a change before the necessity for change is obvious. The need for change is obvious after the damage has been done.  Many people and organizations wait until that point.

But, if I am paying attention to others, and I am humble enough to believe I am not above making the same mistakes, then it is time to step forward and make changes before things get bad.

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

-John F. Kennedy

The Bottom Line:

Too many of us wait for the storm to hit us before we think about making some changes.

• What if that storm hit the town down the road before yours?
• What if the weather report told you there was a chance the storm was coming your way?
• Would you go out and fix the roof before it got there, or would you wait until the rain came?

Yes, learning from our own mistakes is a mark of wisdom. But, we can become much wiser and accelerate our growth if we pay close attention to the mistakes of others.

Question:

What was the biggest lesson you learned from observing the mistakes of others?