My Top Ten Mistakes

I don’t know when it’s a good time to reevaluate past mistakes to learn if they were helpful in my growth or continue to be a stumbling block. New Year’s Day perhaps, or maybe that date is too cliché. There are a couple of reasons not to do it. Starting out a brand-new year by looking at past mistakes, well, who wants to take a holiday to look at failures, besides, I would rather read about my blessings from my gratitude jar to begin the new year on a positive note. So maybe September is a good month. Summer is over, days get shorter, weather gets cooler… and autumn is my favorite year, so yes, maybe this is a good time to create a list of my top 10 mistakes. So, in no particular order, here they are:

1. Determining my self-value by what others think of me.

2. Letting the fear of failure push my dreams to the side.

3. Worrying about every little thing.

4. Letting go of things – past hurts where I fell short on tasks, grudges, etc.

5. Not pursuing a law degree.

6. Being too busy to fully listen to someone.

7. Paying little attention to my finances.

8. Waiting to get everything perfect before beginning – by the way, nothing is ever perfect.

9. Procrastinating when something seemed hard to do.

10. Rejecting a trip to Las Vegas.

As soon as this list is posted I know I will think of others that could be on this list, but I tend to believe the ones that come up first are the ones that stick with you. To me, they are the mistakes that had the most impact on me either at the time or sometime later.

As I look on this list, I can see areas that I have learned from and taught me to grow. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s to recognize, own, learn and most importantly move on from them.

Next blog, “My Top 10 Successes.”