Learning from Our Mistakes

 As I was catching up the checkbook yesterday it occurred to me that we have not yet learned from our mistakes. As soon as that thought flitted through I also realized I'm not exactly sure what mistakes keep landing us in "too-embarrassed-to-admit-we-blew-it-again" land. And with that discovery I stopped what I was doing and wondered (with thunder beating in my head) how we are ever to break free from repeating the same mistakes over and over.


Do we automatically learn from the mistakes we make? No, we must not because if we did the thought of making the same mistake again would not seem so familiar. Can we preempt making the mistake by learning from other people? Well, to one degree or another we can; certainly I have been prevented from worse transgressions in our finances by reading others experiences and learning more about finances in general. But obviously that didn't prevent all the mistakes or I would have nothing to write about today!

After much thought I came to the conclusion that to learn from our mistakes we need to study them, and study them hard! I need to filter out what the exact problem is we wish not to repeat; then trace out piece by piece how that mistake came to exist. And then, after a long hard dissection of that mistake, develop a strategy on how to prevent the same process from being repeated again. This new thinking reminds me of the scientific method I learned in eighth grade: observe, experiment, conclude, repeat. And repeat again. And again.

I don't think I've ever really done that with our money. Generally I say "oh dear, messed up again," then quickly jump into recovery mode. When I do think about our mistakes I wish I could forget they ever happened and think of them with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. In other words, I spend as little time thinking about the details of our mistakes as possible.

While I can read financial blogs and listen to advice and personal anecdotes I can not escape taking a long look at our mistakes. It's uncomfortable and certainly not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Unfortunately it is necessary. So stay tuned in for what I'm learning from this new uncomfortable study of our mistakes.