What's the best mistake you made this week?

Mistakes can be the source of great learning.
We often think of "mistakes" as bad, and something to be avoided, or hidden, but I think of them as useful indicators of things I have yet to learn, or get better at, or understand.
Ideally, we live and work in environments where mistakes are ok to make, and there is space to talk about them, share them, analyze them, and become wiser from them.  Ideally, we aren't shamed or fearful or punished for them.   Let's try to make new and different mistakes.  If we find ourselves making the same mistake over and over, we just haven't yet learned the lesson that the mistake is trying to teach us.

This week, my best mistake was losing emotional control and yelling at a swimmer.
Again.
I got angry and yelled at a swimmer who consistently irritates me when he acts in unsafe ways and is disrespectful to his teammates.  I've tried many approaches in the last few years I've worked with him.... I ignore him, I talk to him, use logic, humor, positive and negative consequences.  Nothing has worked, and we repeat our pattern, he misbehaves, I yell at him.
Now, I am not a yeller.  I don't like myself when I yell.  first, it doesn't do any good, and second, it just reinforces what this swimmer wants from everyone, negative attention.  So, after I caught myself making this mistake again, I see that the true solution is to examine myself closer (why does this person trigger me so often?) and to shift my perspective to be grateful for this opportunity to really understand something, about both of us, but mainly about me.

"The troublemakers in your life are your best teachers."  (Pema Chodron)






"Do not wish that your problems get smaller or go away, rather wish that your ability to deal with the problems expands."