Mistakes help you learn

Honestly, though, so many things are going wrong here that this could be a hard one to come back from. (UBC Library Digitization Centre)

It happens so often and with such pleasing predictability that I know it to be part of the learning process now.

I find out that I got something wrong, and I instantly see the correct solution.

Luckily, because I’m not a bombardier, my errors don’t cause loss of life. I can relish the moment when testing or checking reveals my mistake and I am suddenly able to see what I didn’t see before.

I experience this pattern in crossword puzzles, math problems, craft projects, tennis drills, lesson planning, graphic design, programming, marketing, and even conversations. I make the mistake, then see what I missed and how to fix it. The information that tells me that I’m on the wrong track is precious indeed. If I just keep trying stuff and evaluating to see how it went, I can learn and adapt very quickly. It’s as though my brain already has receptors waiting for the answers to questions, the blanks ready to be filled in. After all the work of preparation and walking in and out of blind alleys, I can readily recognize when something finally clicks.

I have embraced the magic of mistakes as a learner and a teacher. In fact, the title of this post is the WiFi password at my school (should you ever need it). Unfortunately, not all of our students are on board. Many have learned that mistakes are to be avoided — that learning begins and ends with raising your hand to offer the correct answer, even though having the correct answer already probably means that you haven’t learned a darn thing. They don’t realize that the wrong answers are guides along the path, gentle bumpers that nudge your ball away from the gutter and down the lane.

In the Hot and Cold game, “colder” is information that is just as useful as “warmer.” In Twenty Questions, a “no” is just as useful as a “yes.” There is nothing inherently troublesome about a wrong answer unless we expected to get it right on the first try — and where’s the fun in that?

In business, I’ve made every mistake in the book. In music, too. And while there are times when I could have (and should have) just asked for help, I was grateful to have the opportunity to explore and experiment. Perhaps because I didn’t expect to be right, it didn’t ruin my day most of the time to be wrong.

When we say “mistakes help you learn,” we don’t just mean that having a growth mindset is important, or that we ought to keep challenging ourselves in order to continue growing. We also mean it in the literal sense: The actual mistake will directly lead to new insight. It’s an underrated phenomenon that can transform your approach to learning if you let it.