What do we do with our mistakes?

Jim Rohn’s advice here is the best I’ve found: “let your past be a school.” There’s no reason to ruminate endlessly on past mistakes, but neither should we sweep them under the rug. We can learn from our errors.

Especially the habitual mistakes, the ones we fall into time and again. We should all have a mental list of our negative tendencies: “When I’m angry, I sometimes do x, and I need to guard against that. When I’m embarrassed, I tend to do y.” It’s worth examining our negative tendencies so we can avoid such mistakes in the future.

Our own past has a lot to teach us, and it’s worth putting in a little study time.