Talk about a talented person; William Whewell (1794–1866). Can you imagine that he wrote extensively about the philosophy of science, history of science, and moral philosophy.
Willem Whewell, said, "Every failure is a step to success."
I am not sure I agree with him completely, and since he passed away in 1866, we will not be soon discussing his quote. Some failures are not steps in the right direction, and repeating the same mistakes over again is not getting you anywhere.
So many times in my practice, I have seen well-meaning people continue to make the same mistakes and they can't figure out why. So why do they do it?
Robby Berman, in Big Think May 2016 wrote an article called," It’s Your Brain’s Fault You Make The Same Mistakes Over and Over." According to Berman," It has to do with neural pathways in your brain that get created as we do things. When we do something right, a pathway is created. Unfortunately it is also created when we do something wrong. We basically build habits this way, both good and bad. So the reason we keep making the same mistakes is that we slip by default back into existing neural pathways".
So the first step is to recognize you have made a mistake and examine other mistakes that were like this. Next, decide what you will do to correct it. Let's say you find yourself getting defensive when a certain person asks you for a report. Your bad habit is to refuse to comply which causes both you and the person to fail. The new habit you can form has nothing to do with the person, it comes with the request. Deciding that you will have the report ready and deliver it before you are asked. I will go deeper into habit-forming in a future blog. Let me know what habits you'd like to break.
