5 Ways to Use Every Mistake to Grow

Self-Development

No one likes to make a mistake and fail. Mistakes are connected with one of the worst feelings that a person can experience: guilt, shame, disappointment, sadness, sometimes anger. And the consequence is often an impression that we failed again, that we are not good enough to do what we are aiming to do, or that maybe we should stay where we are. We often think that what we do is pointless, we aren’t meant for more than we have today, we are incompetent, not skilled, strong or smart enough.

The truth is that if we don’t fail, it means that we don’t try hard enough. If you don’t make mistakes, it means that you stay in your comfort zone and you don’t push yourself to be in the stretch zone. Mistakes are necessary to grow. Of course they only make sense when we learn from them. When we analyze, make conclusions and move forward being wiser, with better understanding of ourselves, others and the reality that is around.

But for many of us, making a mistake, being wrong or making a bad decision is a no-go. The end of the trip, relation or a business opportunity. So the question is: what we can do differently to use the mistakes to grow, instead of being eaten by them alive? Let’s dig deeper into that today.

1. Treat a day without a mistake as a bad day

Sara Blakely, who is a founder of Spanx (a brand which sells undergarments, leggings, swimwear and maternity wear in over 50 countries all over the world) was raised with quite a counterintuitive sentence that her father asked her every day. “What you failed at today?”, was this sentence. And when she answered: “nothing, everything was fine”, her father was saying something like: “that means that you didn’t try hard enough”. And that’s how she and her brother learned that they need to have at least one failure or mistake every single day when they come back home from school, because without that, the day is not valuable. It was an actual failure not to fail.

Of course it is not only about failing every day and be miserable because of it. The main thing is to fail and learn from every single thing that went wrong. To make mistakes, to reflect and be better the next day.

Look how this shift of thinking can free you up from the guilt, being constantly unsatisfied or feeling that you are not good enough. This shift allows you to make a change in your mindset that will have a huge influence on what you do, how you think and make decisions. From now on, every day (at the end of the day or the next day in the morning: if you journal, it’s a great thing to add to your journaling ritual) think about one situation, reaction, decision, or thing you did the day before that you are not proud of. Or you treat it like a mistake, failure, not the best version of yourself. Think about what triggered you to behave that way and ask yourself: what could I’ve done differently in that situation? What other, better decision could I’ve make?

Treat a day without a mistake as a bad day, look for those moments that weren’t perfect, reflect and learn from them. But protect yourself from going too far into the rabbit hole of disappointment or guilt: it won’t bring you any good. Be smart about it: when you feel that you don’t feel very well, stop for a few days, get some rest. That’s fine to take a breath from time to time. For some of us that kind of exercise can be really hard, even exhausting. Especially if you have a “Be Perfect” Driver that tells you that when you not 100%, you are not a valuable person. Be aware of it, look for the roots and change your story. This is something you actually can do for yourself.

2. Get one thing for you from every mistake

To use every mistake as an opportunity to grow, to build a momentum, we need to be wise about the work that we do within each situation. It is a really thin line between a constructive analysis of the situation and sinking into the abyss of despair, imperfection or disappointment of who we are in compare to who we think we should be.

That’s why I would like to invite you to get only one thing from every mistake you make for yourself. Not more, not less. It’s a good and healthy way to protect yourself (especially from the mental health perspective), to not go to deep into the negative emotions. For some of us, it can be tempting to go to far and land in this moment that it’s going to be super hard to get out of.

You said something mean to your significant other? Think about why you did that and give yourself one sentence that can be more adequate for you to use the next time when a similar situation appears. Don’t ask yourself the questions like: “does he/she love me at all?”, “am I smart/funny/pretty/handsome enough?” or “where are we going?”. Of course, some of those questions can be valid, but for this exercise reflect on just one thing you can do differently, so you see the results in your area of influence.

Somebody at work pushed you to the limits of your patience by their incompetence? You can ask yourself: “are they really incompetent? Maybe their competence lays somewhere else that in my reference frame?”. And one of the most important: “what have I done to come back to OK-OK position with them?”. This is the question that resonates with me lately, and I think that it may be useful for you as well. What one thing can you do differently tomorrow in relation to that person?

3. Invest 5 minutes of growth every time

Every time you see an opportunity to do something better, use 5 minutes to learn how to do it differently. Treat it as a concrete growth time, even if you know (from the rational perspective) what to do and how. There is always a space to grow, try something new.

You snapped at your significant other, because you were tired after the hard day at work? Read a 5-minute article about how to focus on communicating more adequately while being under stress (feeling tired is a body under stress as well).

You procrastinated a task and you regret it now? Watch a 5-minute video on how to procrastinate less in your life.

You made a wrong decision? Call or write to a person that you know that deals really good while making decisions. Ask for 3 things that supports them in this area.

Small, meaningful, targeted actions. Including others, or not. Reading, listening, discussing, experiencing, knowledge sharing. Pick your medium, the way that you learn the best and use it for your own good.

4. Build a winning mindset

Winning mindset is a framework of thinking and reflecting on ourselves and reality that is around us that allows us to succeed. Regardless of what success means to you, the winning mindset is a base of everything you do, every decision you make on where you spend your time and energy to get the best possible results.

Using every mistake as a fuel that drives us to move forward is one of the best possible ways to feed this mindset, to make it better and stronger. The convictions and beliefs that we have in our brains about us and the world are strong, most of them were made before the age of 6. Many of those thoughts are telling us what we should or shouldn’t do, be, how to act, what kind of roles in the society we should have. Somewhere in between of all of them, there is a conviction about making mistakes.

What is your belief about making a mistake? Is it a sign of weakness, a reason to be ashamed of? Does making mistakes mean that you are not perfect, so you shouldn’t be loved or seen as a valuable person? Or maybe every mistake is a chance to do something better, to learn from it? That it is fine to make them because only then we know how to grow?

The first set of convictions is connected to the losing mindset. These are limited beliefs that won’t bring you anything good and will possibly drag you down. The second set of convictions is a winning mindset itself. It allows to stay in the OK-OK position that will empower you, bring you more chances to have a positive outcome of what you do. Creating this in your brain can be hard, especially when you were fed my people who raised you with all of those: “you need to be perfect to be valuable”, or “You got B+? Why not A?!” sentences. But it’s possible to transform those thoughts into more fruitful, caring, open thoughts and beliefs that will actually be a game changer for you. Think about what kind of thoughts you want to have more of in your brain, write them down and put in some place where you can look at it every day. It’ll help you in recreating your mindset to be a winning one.

5. Move on

Staying too long in the state where you analyze the same situation over and over again is not going to help you to grow. The amount of energy, time, focus and emotions that you invest in a certain history needs to be adequate. When you overspend your resources on one story, you risk feeling worse than before, you can lose your confidence and your momentum. And the result can be the opposite to what you’ve intended: you will feel demotivated and you will beat yourself up for not being as good as you wanted.

So be smart about it, make a structure around the analysis. Ask yourself: what happened? Why? Where it was my responsibility and where it wasn’t? What I’ve could done differently? What I can do differently the next time? What one thing I can learn from this?

Answer the ones that resonates with you, make a former decision and move on. No one feels good about themselves and is effective or efficient while being in the stretch zone for too long. We need to move between a comfort and stretch zone to get the best results: being too long in either of them can do more harm than good. By feeling like that it’s more possible that you’ll quit before actually making a change in your life.

Use every mistake you make and be better, smarter, wiser, more mindful about what you do. This knowledge and awareness will keep your momentum going, and will allow you to be great in whatever you decide to do.

So, what kind of mistake did you make today and how you are going to use it to grow?

Udostępnij

Komentarze

0 0 votes

Article Rating

0 komentarzy

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Czytaj także

Leadership

Why Are We So Frustrated as Tech Leaders?

Just think about it for a moment. When was the last time you were angry, pissed off, or frustrated with the other person as a leader? Your direct report didn’t deliver something on time or to the quality that you wanted them to deliver? A person promised to do something, and they didn’t? Or a person asked you a question, you answered, and then they came back with the same question one time, two times, three times, five times? When was the time when you agreed on something? You made a contract on who is doing what: With the client, a contractor, or a vendor; you delivered your part, and they didn’t? Or they did, but the quality of the work was not so good, and you got angry, you thought a lot of not-so-nice things, and maybe you even behaved in an aggressive way. If you’re nodding right now, you’re in the right place. In this article, I’m going to give you answers on why you get so upset when things like that happen, and what to do to manage it better. Let’s go into it. Why am I reacting like that? Do you know people who, even if something’s going on, are calm? It might seem that they don’t even care when you look at them. They’re all chilled out. And then, it’s you: Frustrated, angry, mad at others. Burning up, losing energy, and being exhausted at the end of the day. Is it your reality? If yes, it means that from a personality perspective, you have a strong Thinker or a Persister floor in your Personality Condo. Maybe a Promoter as well, if you are getting angry with people for being too slow (in your frame of reference, of course). It means that your beliefs about yourself in the world go like this: Thinker: “People need to be competent, deliver work on time, efficiently covering what’s there to be done”. Persister: “People need to be trustworthy, fulfilling the contracts that we have for delivering things, following processes we have in place”. Promoter: “People need to be strong, fast, and self-sufficient. They need to act, instead of talk or analyse all the time”. If we have convictions like that in our brains, and it is our default way of working, every person who’s not doing things like that will make us angry or resentful. It’s mostly unconscious, and until we start learning more about Communication Intelligence (CQ), it’s an automatic thinking pattern we go into in every situation that jeopardises how we think the world should look. Eustress vs Distress The answer to why we’re reacting in an aggressive or manipulative way when we have those thoughts in our brains is that we are in distress. Let’s unpack the stress part, since it’s not very often described in two ways: Eustress and Distress. Eustress is a positive stress. It: mobilizes us to take action; positively influences ourselves and people around us; keeps us in strengthening beliefs, pushes us to do things that bring extraordinary results. Eustress is a feeling of excitement, a little bit of adrenaline rushing through our veins, making us brave to go into the uncomfortable. Like being on the stage, sharing things we are truly passionate about with the thought in our brains that we can really change something while sharing it with the world. But, as always, there’s a dark side to the story. Distress is a negative stress. It: is an automatic sequence of thinking, reacting, and doing things (or not doing them at all); negatively influences ourselves and the people around us; keeps us in limiting beliefs, takes us away from the access to the resources we have in ourselves (intellectual, emotional, cognitive, etc.). We go into distress most of the time right away in two situations: We don’t have our physiological needs covered; We don’t have our motivational / psychological needs covered. So, if you’re hungry, thirsty, you haven’t been in the bathroom for hours, you lack sleep or physical touch of a close person, your body is upset, which makes it distressed. And if your motivational needs connected to your personality Base are not covered, your brain and soul are upset, which makes it distressed. Distress is visible when we are anxious, our heart is beating fast, our blood pressure is high, our voice, hands, and knees are shaking, sometimes we have a sore throat, and we can’t even say a thing. It’s when we forget everything we wanted to say, even if we’re well-prepared and equipped. It’s when we lose the brain-spine connection, and we start to behave extremely weirdly, like we’re not ourselves anymore. That’s where the anger, frustration, and consequently, burnout comes. What can we do about it? The awareness is one thing (super important), but action is crucial. Some things will be transferable for every personality Base, and some will be tailored. Let’s start with the individual ones, connected with the 3 types we’ve talked about above: For Thinkers: Make clear contracts, share tasks and responsibilities transparently, and put deadlines whenever you can. Ask for feedback for your efficient work delivered regularly. Structure your day / week, book slots for deep work in your calendar, and protect your time. For Persisters: Make clear contracts, double-check if people have everything they need (resources, skills, technology, etc.) to work efficiently. Ask for feedback for your principled work regularly. Share your convictions with others and have a conversation when you can gather positive recognition for what you believe in. For Promoters: Make a plan and follow it. Remember that not all people work as fast as you, so give them more time before the deadline is due. Take care of the diversification of what you do, so you don’t get bored too quickly. Plan some adrenaline rushes in your private and/or work life. The things you can do to protect yourself from going into distress that are universal to all personality bases are not fancy. I don’t think

Czytaj dalej

11 January 2026 No Comments

Leadership

Why So Many Tech Leaders Don’t Listen?

Communication Intelligence is always first about understanding what we do. And there’s one skill in there that a lot of Tech Leaders are not treating with respect. Not a lot of them focus on that one, and it costs a lot. I’m talking about the listening skills. When I was doing the research for the book that I’m going release soon, I was thinking about different angles of CQ. All of the algorithms that people are using consciously or mostly unconsciously when communicating with other people, especially when being leaders. And there are so many courses, books, podcast episodes, articles, YouTube videos, and TED Talks about speaking, public speaking, or speaking to others. But it dawned on me that there are not a lot of courses and other sources of knowledge about listening. And I’ve started to wonder why that is. I think it is because we think that listening is so easy. You just need to sit and listen, right? Nothing further from the truth. To make a little mindset and skillset shift in this area, today I’ve decided to give you 4 types of listening and some active listening tools and techniques for tech leaders. Let’s dig in! 4 Types of Listening There are 4 types of listening that tell us more about our intrinsic, mostly unconscious motivations: Why do we even go into the conversation with other people? Listen to reply. This is what most of the people do. We listen only to make a moment for ourselves to tell something. We are not listening for other reasons. And if we have this habit of not interrupting, we just cannot wait to jump in and say something. Most of the time, for us is to share information. So, saying what we know, what we have in our brains. We are not there to do anything more than reply. Listen to understand. In this type, people paraphrase, they ask additional questions; they can tell something like: “OK, this is interesting; tell me more.” They can say something with their own words, like: “OK, so I understand from what you’re saying that… Is that correct?” It is to understand, without guessing. Listen to connect. When people want to connect with us, they go deeper. They talk about something important for them, and they share reflections, opinions, values, thoughts, or emotions. They want to connect and find something meaningful for both sides. So, they ask more, they are more attentive, they’re curious about the other person, with an intention to build a relationship (regardless of the context). Listen to co-create. I’m listening to you to create something together, to make some value, to create a solution, to solve a problem, to create a functionality together, or to make a change. We are co-creating something, building a thing that can be valuable or useful for other people. So, I’m listening to what you’re saying, you’re listening to what I’m saying, and we make the synergy from those two things to create something together. Statistically, most people are listening only to reply. Secondly, they listen to understand. Then they listen to connect with some, and very few listen to co-create. The question is: Why is it happening in that order? From my observations and experiences with different leaders, teams, and organizations, it happens because of the way we work and the pressure we have (external and internal). So, my advice for you here is to just reflect on what you do. Next time, when you are going to have a conversation with somebody, just be more aware of how you respond to them and what you’re doing. What do you have in your brain? What is your priority for the conversation? What is the goal of the conversation? It can be private, and it can be professional (maybe private even is going to be more insightful). If you’re only talking, talking, talking, talking to vomit information on the other… Make a pause and observe: “Hey, I’m doing it. How can I be in a different bucket, more curious about the other person, more attentive to what they’re saying, more observant of them?”. Start with that small step, notice the difference. And how to do it? Here’s a list of simple techniques to strengthen your listening leadership muscle. Active Listening Techniques for Tech Leaders #1 Paraphrasing It’s literally repeating what the other person said with a few different words. It’s the simplest tool to check if you got what was told, not assuming that you did. You can start with: “What I’m hearing is…” or “From what you say, I understand that…”. Facts, not opinions. Even if you are a Base Persister, you need to stick to the information without using much of your own frame of reference. Paraphrasing is for you to confirm understanding and de-escalate any misunderstandings that can appear during the conversation. #2 Asking open-ended questions This is the one that a lot of people struggle with. What I observed over the years of working with people from different cultures, it differs from culture to culture. Some countries have a preference to ask closed-ended questions to maintain harmony and avoid confrontation (i.e., Poland, Japan, Korea, Latin America, India). And some of them ask more open-ended questions to drive clarity and efficiency in discussions (i.e., USA, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Arab countries). Asking closed-ended questions is fine if you want to get a straight, yes/no answer. But especially during workshops when we train with leaders on how to give feedback or just use the requestive PCM® channel, it appears how often they use this type of question by coincidence, purely unconsciously. And they’re so surprised that they don’t get the answer they aim for: Especially when they ask a closed-ended question with negation inside (i.e., “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”). Open-ended questions directed to the Base Thinker or Persister will open a whole new conversation. You can get to know so much, only from changing one piece of

Czytaj dalej

4 January 2026 No Comments

Self-Development

2025 Lessons That I Take With Me for 2026

I would never say that I’m going to be that person, but this year it seems proper. I’d like to share with you my biggest lessons, gleaned from various aspects of my life. Because we can talk a lot, but the actions are what make the whole talking meaningful. That’s why I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned this year, so you can get inspired, see how my brain works, and maybe make some plans for yourself for 2026 using this sparkle. 2x Business Takes Time and Effort It was a year of hustle. Saying goodbye to safe options, making bold decisions about ending some partnerships, and going all in on who I really want to be as a Founder and Leader. Those decisions are never easy, but I’ve learned that if I want to go into the next level, I need to be scared but do it anyway. To mitigate risks, be smart, but take massive action. Building a business from scratch is never easy. Even if you do it for the 10th time, there’s always something that’s not going to look the way you planned. Not to mention when you do it for the first time ever. But I’ve discovered that consistency, moving forward, even if it’s one small step a day, is making the difference. 2026 is going to be a year of further progress. Because 10x is easier than 2x. Hosting a Podcast is my Thing This week, Leman Tech Leadership Podcast celebrated episode number 121. 2 episodes per week, 52 weeks of the year. Amazing guests from all around the world are joining me to have a conversation around leadership in technology, startups, and Founder’s struggles, building teams, fighting burnout, and many more. Last year was a year of starting it; 2025 was a year of staying consistent. 2026 is going to be a year of scaling it, so more people can use what we create. It is demanding, it requires scheduling, matching calendars, time zones, and doing research about the guests and solo content. I want to give as much value as possible every time I start recording, so I need to be mindful about the process all the time. But it’s totally worth it, and as long as people are listening, I’m going to continue recording. Writing a Book is Not THAT Hard I’ve struggled with starting to write a book for years. There was always something else to do, more important, more urgent. Moving from 9-5 through hybrid, to full-time entrepreneur, building a business from scratch, learning completely new skills I’ve never needed before, like sales, marketing, or social media strategy. But the second half of the year taught me that it will never be less busy; I just need to make a schedule, book the time, and do it. Don’t negotiate with myself. 2025 was a year of starting to write, and 2026 will be to publish it. Being an author is going to be a new part of my identity that already started growing in me, because the writing process… Is not that hard for me. I sit in front of my computer, I put on headphones that reduce ambient noise, and I just write. It’s also a lesson: People think that things are hard, sometimes impossible, or out of reach. But the truth is that many of them are hard only in our brain, which tries to protect us; when we start doing it, it turns out that it’s not THAT hard. We might even be mad at ourselves that we didn’t do it sooner. But hey, no regrets; only lessons. Obsession About Health is a Good One Ever since my MS diagnosis almost 7 years ago, I’ve become more conscious about my health choices. But this year was on steroids: Prioritising movement (6 workouts/week), moving into the next level as a hiker (finishing Korona Gór Polski and doing my first long-trail event [45 km in less than 16 hours]). Tracking my food habits, transforming some of them, and some are still in progress for 2026. But almost half of my MS brain changes are gone, so… I guess it’s worth the effort. Am I a little bit obsessive about my waking up / going to bed time or food choices? Maybe. Do I regret not eating late with my friends or watching TV so I can catch up on the endless shows that are on my Netflix list? Not at all. The lesson is that everything is a choice. And what I do with my time, health, and energy is the most important choice of all. No drama. Keeping Boundaries is not Selfish When you build something from scratch, you need to be very mindful of where and with whom you spend your time. What serves you and what robs you of the energy you need to push forward? 2025 was a year of keeping my boundaries where they should be, even if people around me weren’t happy about it. Getting up and going to bed early. Cutting the relationships with people and clients that are energy vampires (yes, you can fire a client and survive). Eating what serves me and not getting others’ into my brain with: “Ooooh, it’s just one time, how harmful can it be?” Not negotiating with myself: When I have something in the calendar (like “Book time” for writing), I cut the distractions and sit to write. Even if I have 10 different things I should take care of. Learning how to keep boundaries with myself was a lesson of the year. I plan to do it even more in 2026. Travelling is Freedom For me, travelling is freedom. Whether it’s about work or pure private trips, when I get on the plane, I feel like I can breathe again. 2026 is going to be even more abundant with it: Q1 is for Portugal and New Zealand (first APAC stage!), Q2 for a 3-week US trip, and then… Who knows! What makes you feeling free?

Czytaj dalej

28 December 2025 No Comments