Do you celebrate things? Perhaps when you get everything done on your to-do list for the day, you celebrate with a piece of chocolate. Or when you reach a weight-loss goal, you treat yourself to something fun. Or when you accomplish something you’ve been trying to do for a long time, like a college degree, you celebrate, right? Life is filled with celebrations for birthdays (just being alive makes me happy!), anniversaries, monthaversaries, holidays, etc. It’s fun to find things to celebrate. But what about celebrating failures, mishaps or mistakes?
A few months ago my husband came home from work saying he had heard this new concept about celebrating mistakes because mistakes are just life lessons. (Obviously, some mistakes are accidents and some may be on purpose. But for the purpose of this concept, let’s say mistakes are accidentally. Let’s assume we have the best of intentions, but since no one is perfect, mistakes are inevitable. But the goal is perfection. We just fall short. Most of our learning happens in recognizing what the mistake is and not repeating it.) Perhaps this is not a new concept to you, but for me it was. It was especially enlightening for me because my husband is not a big celebrator. He doesn’t really care about his birthday. When he graduated from medical school, he didn’t want a party–it was I who insisted. He loves celebrating his wife and his children, however. He just doesn’t get the concept of celebrating. In fact, when we read B. J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits (highly recommend this book, and love that the audiobook is read by the author himself on Audible), he really didn’t understand the concept of the tiny rewards. For example, giving a high five or giving yourself a pat on the back. This was entirely new to him. But, as he started implementing it daily, he has seen his tiny habit of celebrating small wins make big successes in life. Anyway, I was intrigued about the concept of celebrating mistakes.
Let me set the scene: we were at the dinner table talking about our days. My girls were telling us about school. My youngest daughter, about 7 years old, was telling us how she struggled with something at school and she seemed a bit embarrassed by it. My husband started telling us about celebrating mistakes. He explained that she should be happy that she made that mistake because she is not likely to do it again. She learned from it. She could and would do better. She cheered up. Since then, we have a habit of talking about our mistake(s) from the day and what we learned and how we will make it better. Such a simple concept has really changed how we look at mistakes.
I made a bigger mistake not too long ago. I had entirely mixed up our calendar dates and had to rearrange and reschedule things three different times with the respective parties and entities to fix it. I was so embarrassed. But as I shared what had happened, including the fact that my husband had to help me in communicating the mix-up more than once, my kids laughed and said, “Mom, guess you’re learning aren’t you.” I was so happy to hear this. I felt less embarrassed. My kids know that mistakes are inevitable. Embarrassment happens, but doesn’t need to stay. We can fix our mistakes. For the mistakes we can’t fix on our own, we can get help. And for mistakes big and small, the Savior Jesus Christ is always there to help us get up and start again. He never scolds. He always loves. He gently leads us back where we should be. It is our opportunity to take the steps forward to move on from the mistakes and be better. Eventually, through Christ, our efforts will be made perfect.