Learn

"We've all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it's more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors."
Norman Vincent Peale

We've all heard about the dangers of not learning from our mistakes. We should all learn what doesn't work so that we don't do it again next time. Many of us still go through life without learning from our mistakes, however. We don't want to admit to them, and how can we learn from something we are pretending we didn't do? We tend to see a mistake as a disaster. And we all know about "stupid" mistakes, when you regret that you didn't do something better (but if you could have, at the time, you would have done it better). How can we learn from something we are ashamed of or even mortified by? How can we learn from something we choose to ignore? So the first thing is to learn what doesn't work from observing your mistakes.

But you must also learn from your successes. Many people just see their successes as the stepping stones for the next success. Other people don't even realize their successes as such. It may not have quite led to the result that they anticipated. There is always something to be learned from the results of any action you take towards a goal. You need to learn what does work, what you must do in order to get a certain result. You also need to learn how your results fit into your roadmap for success. Maybe you didn't get exactly the result you wanted, but the result you got pointed you to another way to get to the same goal. The action was not wasted because you are still moving forward, just on a different route to the end result.
Even if your actions worked the way you wanted, learn why they worked. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors.

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