{"id":111410,"date":"2024-11-25T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T23:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propertyupdate.com.au\/?p=111410"},"modified":"2024-09-26T11:11:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T01:11:14","slug":"how-to-tell-a-truly-bad-mistake-from-a-meaningful-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertyupdate.com.au\/how-to-tell-a-truly-bad-mistake-from-a-meaningful-one\/","title":{"rendered":"How to tell a truly bad mistake from a meaningful one"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are moments in life when we think, \u201cI have made a terrible mistake\u201d or even, \u00a0\u201cOh God, things could not get much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queue the doomsday music!<\/p>\n

That sinking feeling is not a pleasant one, and some people are so afraid of that emotion \u2013 of doing something wrong or taking a course of action that they may regret \u2013 that they avoid risk altogether.<\/p>\n

Imagine if Warren Buffett or Richard Branson had taken that approach.<\/p>\n

Avoiding risks so you don\u2019t make any mistakes is no way to go through life.<\/p>\n

We all need to learn to put errors into perspective and to realise not all mistakes are terrible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, some of them are really important for our continued growth \u2014\u00a0both as investors and human beings.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the really good mistakes \u2014\u00a0I know how odd that sounds \u2014\u00a0get lumped in with the terrible mistakes that people should avoid making.<\/p>\n

So how do you tell if your mistake is one of the really bad ones?<\/p>\n

Here are a few foolproof signs.<\/p>\n

\"Mistake2\"<\/p>\n

1. They don\u2019t teach you anything<\/span><\/h2>\n

The reason meaningful mistakes are meaningful is because we learn from them.<\/p>\n

But if, for whatever reason, you keep making the same mistake and you\u2019re not learning anything then it has become a problem.<\/p>\n

Just say you get yourself into credit card debt,<\/strong> and, after cursing yourself (and reading all our previous posts on why credit card debt is to be absolutely avoided), your partner or family pays it off for you.<\/p>\n

What have you learned from this mistake?<\/p>\n

Not a whole lot, most likely, because you didn\u2019t feel any real consequence for your actions.<\/p>\n

2. They\u2019re compulsive<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sometimes we claim to have learned from our mistakes, and then, despite swearing to change our ways, we end up repeating them.<\/p>\n

Over and over again. \r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/div><\/p>\n

That\u2019s when a mistake stops being a learning experience and starts becoming a compulsive behaviour.<\/p>\n

Many would-be investors fall into these compulsive traps because they have never been taught how to have a healthy relationship with money.<\/p>\n

They get a little bit of it and go wild, spending big on expensive cars or gambling it down the drain.<\/p>\n

Depending on how severe the compulsion is, this can be a very costly compulsion that can lead to full-blown gambling addictions or serious debts.<\/p>\n

3. They damage your life<\/span><\/h2>\n

Here is a good tip: be wary of the person who downplays their mistakes too much, who seems a little bit too relaxed about them.<\/p>\n

Often these people can be hiding the damage that their mistake is causing to their life out of shame or denial.<\/p>\n

If your mistakes are costing you friends,<\/strong> relationships or work opportunities on a regular basis then these are not meaningful mistakes.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true that sometimes people have to lose everything to find out who they are, this is not something anyone should be aiming for.<\/p>\n

Regular mistakes are instructive and helpful, but they shouldn\u2019t damage your whole life.<\/p>\n

\"Mistake\"<\/p>\n

4. They prevent you from trying<\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m going to get a bit psychological now and say that some people use mistakes as a way of justifying never trying again.<\/p>\n

They store these little errors in the back of their mind and they draw on them when they face a challenge or a hurdle that places them outside their comfort zone.<\/p>\n

On the flip side of the coin, meaningful mistakes:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n