Making the same mistake twice
It is enough to make a mistake once in order to learn something and not repeat it. By repeating the mistake, you learn more.
Context: I live in a village, close to the city. My life in general, though, is happening in the city.
A few weeks ago, I left home without my keys. By the time I got back home, my boyfriend was at work, the door was locked and there was no one home to unlock the door for me. That time, my boyfriend was going to come back home soon, so I waited for half an hour for him to arrive with the keys.
I learned my lesson: I will not leave home without my key.
A few days ago, my boyfriend and I both woke up early and went into the city. He was going to work and I was going to run some errands, so he gave a ride, then he went back to where he needed to go.
I was ready quite soon after that, so I happily took an uber back home. I was going to be back home so early!
Back home, the moment I entered the courtyard, it hit me: I had no key. I tried the doors, I looked under the rugs, hoping that maybe, just maybe, we forgot a key somewhere or forgot to lock some door. We hadn’t.
I waited 15 minutes for an uber, I went back into the city, had my boyfriend get out of a meeting, as I needed him to give me his key, took another uber back home; it took me an additional hour.
I started processing the whole situation. What had happened? I had already learned something the first time, why did I repeat the behaviour a second time? And then I knew what had happened.
If you’ve had coaching sessions with me or attended any of my trainings, you have probably heard me saying that the subconscious mind does not understand “not”. Remember what I learned the first time? “I will not leave home without my key.” There you go. And on top of that, I become conscious of other recurrent thoughts I had after that: “I will definitely not leave without my key again”, “how would it be to leave again without a key?”, “it would be so funny to do the same”. Well, I did exactly that.
What I learned this time?
• I have positive learnings.
• I make sure to have my key whenever I leave house.
• I keep my keys where I can see them.
• I am conscient of my thoughts.
• I am attentive.
• I live in the present.
Have you ever repeated a mistake? What have you learned out of that?
Let me know.