Mistakes are only mistakes if we don't learn something from them

I have been reading a book by a horse trainer, Mark Rashid, that has really gotten me to thinking about a lot of things. The book is "Whole Heart, Whole Horse." I have really have enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to read this winter. I find so many things that horse trainers say and do can also apply to training/working sheepdogs.

His very first chapter deals with mistakes and are they really mistakes?
Here are a good couple of paragraphs:

"A lot of folks tend to think of making a "mistake," particularly when it comes to working with horses, as a bad thing, something that we may not be able to recover from. Yet if we turn that thought just a little bit on its side, it doesn't take long to understand that not only are mistakes part of life, but a lot of good can also come from them, if only we let it. The problem is, for some, just the simple thought of making a mistake can be enough to paralyze them into a state of inactivity and perpetual fear of the unknown.
Along those same lines, I think it is also important to understand that very few things in life are all good, and very few things in life are all bad. The same fire that warms our house can also burn down a forest. The same water that can flood a town can also bathe a baby. Electricity can cook a man's food, but it can also cook the man."

To me we can all make mistakes, it's what we do afterward that really determines if they are a mistake or a learning experience. Basically, if you learned something from it, then it wasn't a mistake.

And another quote from the book:
"Granted, nobody likes to make harmful mistakes, particularly when it comes to working with a horse. Yet on the other other side of that coin, if you are going to do anything well, some mistakes are inevitable along the way. Oddly enough, it has been my experience that those folks who have accepted mistakes as part of life often seem to make the least number of mistakes overall. By comparison, folks who don't want to make any mistakes, and in fact try to go out of their way to avoid making them, are often the ones who end up having the most problems."

Interesting that he finds that those who expect mistakes to be part of life and training seem to make the least amount of mistakes. So, guys, mistakes are not all bad.

Some more:
"What a lot of folks don't understand, is the the vast majority of unwanted behavior in horses is only as bad as we make it out to be. It usually looks much worse than it really is. As a result, the behavior has a tendency to frighten us, mostly because we don't understand it and often we don't know what to do about it. When this type of behavior shows up in a horse, we somehow believe we have already made a mistake of some kind with him or he wouldn't be acting that way. As a result, we don't want to make another mistake, and so we do nothing at all.
You see, following this way of thinking, we are only looking at the problem and not looking for the solution. Yet not only is the solution so often right in front of us, but the "mistake" we made that got the horse into that mindset is more than likely the one thing that holds the key to resolving the unwanted behavior in the first place!"

So, don't dwell on what you did wrong to get you into this in the first place, but strive to figure out a solution to help your dog.

And here is a good one to end the chapter on:

"I believe a mistake in the training or handling a horse isn't wrong, either. A "mistake" just doesn't get the result we were expecting; it does, however, get a result. If we didn't get the result we were looking for, we try again. We need to remember what the horse offers in response to our request is simply information--nothing more, nothing less. It's not good or bad, it just is. The response to a request is simply a compass pointing us in the direction we should be traveling. It's not the end; it's often just the beginning. What we do next, not what we just did, will determine whether or not we make forward progress.
In the end, it could be that the mistakes we (whether in horsemanship or in life) are nothing more than opportunities...opportunities just waiting for a time and place to show themselves. And besides, if we learn something from them, then perhaps they aren't mistakes anyway."

So, nothing in life is a mistake. We can learn from everything, good or bad, on this journey we call life. So, we all need to learn to not be so afraid to make a mistake. I know that I will strive to learn from my mistakes in training/working my dogs and in my life.