Every day, people make mistakes. These mistakes may come in all shapes and sizes, from the small to the severe.
Sometimes, these mistakes can be seen as unforgivable or uncorrectable errors that will define a bright future.
However, our past doesn’t define us as much as we think it does (or, let’s be honest, what other people say it means).
In life, we can’t let one mistake define our entire future. We have to learn from our mistakes and move on.
As I look back on my life, I see many moments where I’ve learned something about myself and life.
While there are plenty of bad moments, there are also many good ones that stay with me forever. I choose to focus on the good ones. I wouldn’t say I like to dwell on the bad at the expense of letting go of the good.
So if you’re just starting in life or have been around for a while, here are five reasons why your past mistakes don’t define you:
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1. You Can Learn From It.
Most of these experiences will teach you a lesson in some fashion or another. You may have to go through some tough times to get there, but the knowledge you gain is worth it in the end.
Think of any challenge you’ve faced as a chance to be stronger and wiser. You might even benefit from it later on down the road.
Adversity can teach us a lot about ourselves and what we’re capable of accomplishing.
You may feel like something terrible has happened that is too big for you to overcome or learn from, but trust me when I say this isn’t true.
We are much stronger than we give ourselves credit for.
The truth is that every challenge can be overcome, no matter how big or small.
I don’t care if you made a mistake and went through something traumatic or devastating; it’s all about how you handled it and what you learned from it that matters.
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2. You Can Be Stronger Than This
If something awful has happened to you, I know it’s hard not to feel bitter about it. It’s not easy to move forward as if nothing happened.
It’s easy to dwell on what you’ve been through and think that this is the biggest hurdle you’ll have to overcome.
But if you can’t let go of these events, it’s time to move on. We have our entire lives ahead of us.
We don’t have to be defined by our mistakes or suffer from them daily. We’ll never get better if we allow them to drag us down.
Nothing is lost forever. Every experience and every mistake can teach us what we need to know.
We can use this to create a new future for ourselves that’s better than our past mistakes have always let on.
Don’t give up on your end because of something you’ve done in the past!
It’s time to move on and make peace with where you’ve been and where you’re going. Use these mistakes to motivate you to get better.
Letting your past drag you down or define your future is no longer necessary. You have so much potential. Don’t stay stuck in the past!
You can choose to grow from your experiences, even if it’s hard sometimes. Don’t be too hard on yourself for letting things happen.
And don’t think you can’t overcome them either, because that could never be further from the truth.
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3. You’re Capable of Much More Than You Know.
If you’ve made a huge mistake or had something bad happen to you, I know how it feels.
Sometimes it feels like these mistakes won’t leave us alone, but one day we can look back on this moment and say that we’ve overcome the worst of it.
We can’t forget these experiences, but we also don’t have to dwell on them. Trust me, and it will get easier if you’re having a hard time coming to terms with what happened.
I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but we are capable of more than we can think.
If you’ve made a mistake and feel like you’ve disappointed someone or yourself, know that there’s nothing wrong with making a mistake. It’s how we learn and grow as individuals.
The best part is that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we have to go through harsh times to learn the most valuable life lessons.
It might seem like you can’t move on from something, but you can.
You will get over it, and you’ll move on from mistakes. No matter how hard it seems, there is always a way to learn from things and grow because of them.
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4. It provides you with experience.
A few things prepare you for the future, like going through life and making mistakes.
If you’ve made a big mistake, it’s okay! Everyone makes mistakes in life. We can’t always avoid making them, so we should learn to accept them when they happen.
Life isn’t easy; it’s rough. When we make mistakes or go through tough times, we learn from them, and our life experiences help us become stronger people.
It doesn’t make us weak or inadequate people to try and learn from our mistakes.
Mistakes are perfect things to have, though. They’re an experience that becomes part of who you are and gives you the knowledge and expertise to do even better in the future.
Even if we don’t like the mistakes we’ve made, they do teach us something.
Dealing with your mistakes is essential; knowing how to handle them when they happen is just as important.
Don’t think that you aren’t capable of doing better because you made a mistake. If anything, it shows the opposite: how much potential you have to do things better.
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5. It’s Part Of Life.
You’ll go through many things in life, but they all happen for a reason. No matter how big of a mistake you’ve made, remember that you can learn from it and use the lesson to better yourself later on.
We will all make mistakes at some point or another. That’s just how life goes.
Life isn’t always easy, but we can surpass our mistakes if we don’t let them define us.
Remember that it’s not about your mistakes but what you learned from them.
Looking back on past mistakes and using them to improve yourself is essential.
You never know what you’ll learn or what mistakes you’ll make in the future, so use your mistakes to your advantage.
Please don’t feel bad or like anything is wrong with you because of something terrible that happened to you in the past; remember that it’s not a permanent part of who you are. If anything, they’re a way for you to grow and learn.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Varvara Grabova on Unsplash