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Course: Growth mindset > Unit 2
Lesson 3: Mistakes are opportunitiesLearn: Mistakes are opportunities.
When mistakes are harmful
Below are three common ways we allow mistakes to hurt our learning process:
1. We get discouraged.
We make a mistake and interpret that mistake as a sign that we don’t have potential. It triggers our fixed mindset voice, and we get frustrated or give up.
What do you think would have happened if Herman had sat at home discouraged after his test, not doing anything about his first bad grade?
2. We don't reflect on our mistakes and don’t own up to our mistakes.
We sometimes find it so unpleasant to think about our mistakes that we don’t spend time reflecting on why they happened. This is a huge wasted opportunity. We need to realize that mistakes are useful signals that point us to the missing pieces in our current understanding.
What do you think would have happened if Herman hadn't reviewed the questions he missed on the retake, and thus hadn't realized that he did poorly on the test not because he didn't know the material but because he rushed?
3. We avoid taking risks or doing tasks we've made mistakes in before.
We avoid situations where we might make mistakes because we find the idea of making mistakes so unpleasant. Unfortunately, this means that we avoid the situations where we’re most likely to learn.
What if Herman had given up on history altogether?
When mistakes are helpful.
People who are cultivating a growth mindset take a different, more positive view of mistakes. They view mistakes as valuable—not as something negative or something to be embarrassed by— and take time to learn from them.
Let’s hear from Dave Travis about making mistakes and why they sometimes can be good for our brain growth.
Dave touches on something that we oftentimes don’t realize. Once you’ve made one mistake and fixed it, it doesn’t mean that you won’t make more mistakes. Sometimes we make different types of mistakes on the same topic over and over. If we are making the same mistake over and over, it can help us know that it's time to change our learning strategy.
In the next part of this activity, we will review more examples of when mistakes are learning opportunities and reflect on how we can begin to identify and learn from our own mistakes .
You have completed part 2 of 3 for this activity: Learn!
Want to join the conversation?
what is it like to be a brain(30 votes)
when I was a bit younger I once fell off my eletric scooter going downhill. got hurt. but I don't think I got back on it for quite a while, I think one reason was it was like almost winter or something, it really hurt for a while, and I was kind of scared to go on it again. Sorry for putting this here I just saw #3 and I thought of that and I kind of wanted to share my story.(14 votes)
I've learned that mistakes are just an opportunity to grow and develop new skills.(9 votes)- i would say the same its how we become better and learn new things(2 votes)
- Is it possible to get like a hella bad gpa one semester then get way better the second? I think so(7 votes)
It's exactly what im doing now :)(4 votes)
is wee wee a fart on my butt?(7 votes)- This is so similar to when Thomas Edison was trying to invent the lightbulb. He failed so many times but never gave up. Eventually, he accomplished his goal. I wanted to share this because he says a really important thing during this process: he said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work". This is the way we should be looking at our own mistakes.(7 votes)
I’m glad this is something my parents tried to teach me from a young age. Although giving up something based on your mistakes is easier than pursuing your goal, it feels much more satisfying to follow through with your goals.(6 votes)- being a brain must be complicated(5 votes)
- mistakes is good for the brain(5 votes)
- mistakes just happen it apart of life(1 vote)
- Is ok to feel doubt who doesn't but, never giving up is what counts and learn from mistake and let the past be in the past.(4 votes)