In this day and age of social media and filters on instagram, there is a lot of time spent putting forth images that you want to portray rather than the reality of life. We are constantly looking for ways to sequester or hide flaws and mistakes in order to feel accepted. In this quest for perfection, we often end up overlooking and minimizing a vital truth: No one is perfect and everyone will make mistakes in this life. So rather than the focus be on perfection, it would be better served to focus on how to fix our mistakes. Being perfect is not the answer. The answer is learning how to fix our mistakes. And learning how to fix our mistakes is the most important lesson we can learn in this life. It is the one thing everyone of us has to do. Here are four reasons we should focus on fixing our mistakes rather than be afraid of making mistakes and promote perfection.

Mistakes Have the Ability to Teach Lessons

Mistakes have the ability to teach lessons. While we are often encouraged to forget the mistake and move on, remembering the lesson learned is far more important that forgetting the mistake. A few years ago, I was making cookies with my middle daughter who was maybe 5 at the time. My little helper was standing on a chair next to me anxiously looking on while I added the flour into the standing Kitchen-Aid mixer. I told her to turn it on but neglected to tell her what speed and she turned it on so high that within seconds she became a ghost covered in flour- not to mention the counter, the flour and pretty much the whole kitchen. A mistake for sure, but one that we talk about and laugh about nearly everytime I make cookies. In fact, just yesterday she said to me (in between bouts of laughter): “Remember when you made me into a ghost??” I think of that story everytime I go to turn on the mixer and luckily to this day haven’t made anyone into a ghost as I remember the lesson I learned: flour and speed don’t mix well.

You Don’t Have to Make Your own Mistakes in Order to Learn From Them

You don’t have to make your own mistakes in order to learn from them. There is power in books, and shows or movies; power in history and sometimes real lessons that you can learn from in your own family history. Don’t be afraid to talk about mistakes. My kids are all highly entertained by the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series that has actually been made into 3 different movies as well. The main character, Greg, is constantly getting into trouble and finding mishaps–often digging a hole even deeper with his habit of lying. It is important to talk about and discuss characters in books and in movies and even relatives who have gone on or are still living and share the mistakes they made and how we can avoid making the same mistakes and repeating family history rather than growing from it. All of us have made mistakes, but what books and history helps us realize is that you can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

Making the Mistake is not the Biggest Issue, it is not Fixing the Mistakes we Make

Don’t be afraid of mistakes. Mistakes can and will happen and making a mistake is not the biggest issue. It is not fixing the mistakes we make. Just last week, in my anger and frustration at finding my son playing with a LEGO set instead of what he was supposed to be doing, I picked up the LEGO set and broke it. It seemed liked millions of grey and black LEGOs went flying in all directions. I made a mistake into a much bigger mess. However, it became a great lesson to show my son that I fix mistakes–even mistakes like this one that took HOURS to fix. He will remember that I broke it but he will also remember that I spent hours working together with him to fix it– That I am not afraid to fix mistakes and that there is no mistake that he could make that I wouldn’t be there to help him fix. Yes, it would be better if I had not broken the set but I can’t go back in time and change that moment in that chapter, but I can change the ending of the story.

Mistakes Can Be Fixed

Charles F. Kettering was once quoted as saying, “You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” If there is one thing that is more powerful lesson about mistakes than anything else, is that mistakes can be fixed because forgiveness is possible. It doesn’t even matter if you have shattered something that is beyond repair. Because of Jesus Christ, there is a way forward no matter what mistake has been made and it is not dependent upon whether a person we have wronged has forgiven us.

“However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love.” Jeffrey R. Holland

You are not the mistake. You are someone who makes mistakes AND who fixes them.

While I much rather have not made my daughter into a ghost that day in the kitchen and not broken my son’s Star Wars LEGO set, I am grateful for the knowledge that mistakes can be lessons that can help us learn and grow and that mistakes are made to be fixed. There really is not a more important lesson we can learn in this life than how to fix mistakes. If this has been helpful for you, please like and share so others will be able to benefit as well. Thanks!