“Building Better From The Inside Out”
Learn The Lesson, So, You Don’t Have to Repeat It!

I grew up in an era where children were heavily influenced by the creative genius of Charles M. Schultz. For those of you who aren’t familiar with that name, Schultz was an American cartoonist who was best known for creating the comic strip, “PEANUTS”. His most famous characters are names that I’m sure you’ve heard of:

 CHARLIE BROWN, SNOOPY, LINUS, PEPPERMINT PATTY, LUCY, SALLY, MARCIE, PIGPEN, SCHROEDER, AND FRANKLIN

One of the most memorable episodes in Peanuts history was the annual SAGA OF THE SWIPE: which of course involved Lucy, Charlie Brown, and that infamous football.




This epic drama repeated itself every September for over 50 years and became the paradigm for the uneasy tension between trust and betrayal, hope and despair. To a kid of course, it was the continuous acts of failure that stood out the most. No single act better encapsulated a child’s feeling of powerlessness than Charlie Brown’s failure to kick the football, and I personally felt his frustration and disappointment. No matter how many times Lucy reassured Charlie Brown that she would not swipe the ball away, and no matter how many times she went back on her word, Charlie still chose to engage in the same behavior and ultimately kept paying the same price, over and over again.

Charlie Brown constantly found himself torn between the obligatory trust that one should have in a friend, and the foreseeable consequences of trusting Lucy. And unfortunately, it was that conflict which prevented Charlie from learning from the experience and thus repeating that negative pattern.

HOWEVER, WE CANNOT BE TOO HARD ON CHARLIE BROWN

 We’ve All Had Some “Lucy’s” In Our Lives

 There are “professional swipers”.

Sometimes, we feel like Charlie Brown—doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, however there is a way to break the cycle of repeated negative behaviors, and it starts by Learning the Lesson and Purposing Not to Repeat It.

Certainly, it goes without saying we must go through life always looking forward, but we must understand our history (look back) to not repeat the mistakes of the past. I have seen too many instances where people continued to pursue wrong courses of action because they did not take the time to think critically about what has happened in the past.

“THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.’ – Sir Winston Churchill



ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR MISTAKES WITHOUT FEARING THEM

 A healthy recognition of failure helps you grow

Trust me, it can be hard to admit failure, but if you run from it, you’ll lose out on the chance to learn from it. Admit the mistake to yourself or the person it affected, so you can re-examine how it happened and do better next time. If facing your errors makes you anxious or frightened, remind yourself of a few things:
• Every single person has had lapses in judgment. [e.g., Will Smith/Oscars]
• Most failures are temporary setbacks, rather than absolute disasters.
• People who achieve great things often had great failures along the way.

ACCEPT THAT MISTAKES PLAY AN INVALUABLE ROLE IN YOUR LIFE

 Mistakes are both unavoidable and useful

 “FAILURE IS NATURE’S CHISEL THAT CHIPS AWAY AT ALL THE EXCES, STRIPPING DOWN EGOS AS IT MOLDS AND SHAPES US THROUGH DIVINE INTENTIONS.” – ANONYMOUS

IF we never made mistakes and always avoided failure, we’d be less capable of showing compassion, having empathy, displaying kindness, and achieving great heights. Failure is a stepping-stone. In fact, there are four very powerful life lessons that failure helps to tech and instill in us.

1) Experience – The first important lesson gained from making colossal mistakes is experience. When we go through something and can walk away with firsthand experience, it helps us to develop a deeper understanding for life.

2) Knowledge – Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure that inflicted so much pain in the first place.

3) Resilience – Failing in life helps to build resilience. The more we fail, the more resilient we become. To achieve great success, we must know resilience.

4) Growth – Failure births maturity. Life is designed for us to grow and improve. Like fertilizer on grass, the mistakes we’ve made in life helps us to grow.

IDENTIFY BEHAVIORS THAT LEAD TO MISTAKES.

 Examine your life for behavior patterns you'd like to work on

If you're caught in a loop making the same mistakes over and over, it's probably because you have a “BLIND SPOT” in how you're viewing certain situations and behaving within it.

Accidents happen daily because an unsuspecting car was in a driver’s blind spot.

 I Cor.11:28 – “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.”

• Try to face the hidden motivations behind your behavior.
• Why are you acting the way you are?
• Why are you saying the things you do?
• Why are thinking the way you are?

GIVE YOURSELF TOOLS TO AVOID REPEATING MISTAKES.

I vividly remember after purchasing my first home my father told me I needed to have some tools! He assured me that despite the house being relatively new, that eventually things were going to go wrong, and I needed to have the proper tools to fix them.

 We Need Tools to Avoid Making Mistakes

You can't just shout at yourself to do better and expect it to magically happen. Approach your difficulties with a realistic mindset and take steps in advance to stop old patterns from playing out again.

Learn Your Behavioral Triggers.

 Find out what triggers your behavior and adapt to it

Very Few People Go-Off for No Reason at All!

What situations or events lead to the behaviors you're unhappy with? Your mistakes don't just appear out of nowhere. They can be encouraged by other people, stressful events, and even little things like missing a meal. Identifying these patterns is the first step toward changing your response to them or preventing them from coming up in the first place.

FIND A PARTNER IN SELF-IMPROVEMENT.

 Trade encouragement with an accountability partner

Someone you can check in with for encouragement can help you stick to your goals once the initial motivation wears off.:

• Find someone who is non-judgmental and can give positive reinforcement.
• The more seriously you both take it, the more helpful it will be. Choose someone who is willing to commit to scheduled check-ins, and not back out on them.



PICK YOURSELF UP AFTER SETBACKS.

There are two types of people in this world, people who take failure personally, see it as a permanent situation and give up, and there are people who use it as a lesson, do not take it personally but see it as a temporary setback.

Setbacks will happen; what matters is how you respond to them. Changing old habits, unpacking your own trauma, facing your relationship to failure: all of this is valuable work, but it can also be difficult and draining on a bad day. It is completely normal to feel confident and motivated at one moment, and then fall into pessimism and regret. When you do make a mistake again, there are ways to get back on track:
• While you're still feeling the negative emotions, seek support from the right people in the right environment—people who won't judge you, and places that won't trigger more negative behaviors.

• After you're feeling a bit better, look back at how the setback happened. Maybe something unexpectedly triggered strong emotions in you—work out why, and how you could avoid that next time.

• Think about how your coping strategies failed. Is there a way to make them easier or more accessible?

• Finally, think about how you handled the setback during the worst of it. Is there a healthier and faster way to get through the dark times?