The history of my folly

Preserve your mistakes for posterity. 

Perhaps you don’t regard making a mistake as actually bad. Perhaps you are quite resigned to the need to make mistakes in order to learn, and you need no convincing as to their value. 

But there might remain a sense of embarrassment.

It feels embarrassing to blunder. You feel a fool when you put your foot in your mouth. You feel like a dick when you trip, a klutz when you stutter (I could go on . . . )

And that’s not good, because any such inhibitions have the effect of slowing you down and making you do less. So here’s a strategy that you could use.

Write down your best bloopers. Start a collection of your goofs. Turn them into anecdotes that you tell at your own expense. Trot them out at parties, and be the loudest to laugh. 

In her book, Dr Kato Lomb refers often to “the history of my folly”. She is not too shy to recount a number of personally embarrassing incidents.  

That’s one way to reduce their potency, and take away the sting. That’s how you neutralize their poison, and remove their fangs. 

The only ‘disadvantage’ with this technique is that you are much less likely to repeat those entertaining mistakes.