Reading the title of this column may make you think that I’ve been on a binge or taking illegal drugs.  With the month of December in full swing I thought I would share with you why I think mistakes are gifts.

Imagine your life without mistakes:  The road you’re on is not bumpy. The work you do is perfect. You never have to toss a letter in the trash after printing it and finding a spelling error.  Freshly baked cookies from the oven are perfect in shape, size and color.  The ones that are too brown – and perhaps even smoking – never happen. Indoor plants never die or lose their leaves from lack of water, fertilizer or sunlight.  Your car is in pristine condition.  You can park it in a lot and the car next to you, while very close to your vehicle, never makes an impression on your door.

We need mistakes to make us wake up.  After all, without bumps in the road, we might fall asleep at the wheel.  Burnt cookies (or the smoke alarm, whichever comes first) alert us to excessive oven temperatures, too much exposure heat, or inattentiveness.   The distasteful result prompts us focus on one thing at a time so we can make perfect cookies with every batch.  A plant losing leaves remind us to pay closer attention to what we are doing and to move it to a location where it can thrive.  Making sure there’s enough room for the other driver to get into his/her car is one way you can do your part to keep our parking lots dent-free. 

Mistakes keep us humble.  We find better ways to communicate and relationships are enhanced when apologies come from the heart. We’re inspired to create better designs and better “widgets” if the first ones fail.  Earl Bakken, founder of Medtronic, knew this concept well after the first cardiac pacemaker connected to electricity failed and a young patient died because of a power failure.  That event made Earl work even harder to improve cardiac pacemakers to what they are today and eventually made Medtronic an international leader in creating and manufacturing medical devices.

Mistakes are not bad – how we react to them is the problem.  Getting angry at a mistake or refusing to change to improve the outcome is wrong.   It’s important to learn and grow from mistakes and work to make things better as we go through life. 

May you always benefit from your mistakes and consider them gifts to guide you through life. 

Merry Christmas!

- Bonnie