A couple of years ago, I had the bright idea that I was going to get away cheap on Valentine’s Day by surprising my wife with a cat that I had adopted from the local animal shelter.  The plan seemed to work: she was happy and I had only spent a total of $33.50 ($30 for the cat and $3.50 for a card). The next day, however, the plan quickly unraveled. I was on my way home from work when I received the frantic call from my wife. She was crying and deeply distraught. “She’s Dying! There’s blood everywhere!” she managed to get out between sobs. It turns out that the Valentine’s Day cat had jumped into the kennel with our two large dogs and was now in a state of mangled comatose on our bathroom counter. Feeling awful of course, I spent the rest of the drive home trying to figure out how to best put a cat out of its misery in a humane manner. When I arrived home, the cat wasn’t as near death as I had assumed, although she was clearly not in good shape. At my wife’s insistence, I wrapped the cat in a towel and promptly headed out the door to find a veterinary clinic that kept late hours. There was to be no such luck. The only place open was called The Animal Emergency Hospital, which I translated to mean “Kiss your paycheck goodbye.” Several hours and $1,000 later, I emerged with my wife’s Valentine’s Day present still intact.

Lesson learned: Buy jewelry.

We all make mistakes. Fortunately, we as intelligent thinking humans have the ability to learn from our mistakes and use the lessons learned to propel us to future success. While it is always painful to go through the process of dealing with our mistakes, it is that pain that makes the strongest impression on our subconscious and ultimately helps us make better decisions.

Some people equate making mistakes with failure. As a result, they play it safe, avoiding risk and rarely moving outside their comfort zone. Their fear of failure limits their growth potential and prevents them from learning many of life’s lessons that only come through making plenty of mistakes. While they may avoid some of the pain that mistakes inevitably bring, they tend to lead boring, unfulfilled lives and fall miserably short of their full potential.

So making mistakes is actually a good thing - as long as we see them as opportunities to learn and grow. I made a big one last week when I inadvertently hit ‘Reply All’ on an email response to a client that I intended to be private. I’ll admit that it was difficult to see the benefit of this mistake as I endured the awkwardness of explaining myself to the list of unintended recipients. In hindsight, however, I have learned a valuable lesson in email etiquette and thinking twice before hitting the send button.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and make more mistakes!

As I sit in my garage writing this, the thousand-dollar cat is doing her best to get my attention. Which reminds me - I have an anniversary coming up. Better head to the jewelry store soon.