When making mistakes the problem does not lie in the mistake per se but in our attitude and not everyone reacts in the same way when making an error. If we aspire to evolve we must not only get out of our comfort zone but also learn to accept that we will make mistakes and that these will help us to evolve. The problem lies in that we are not prepared to understand our own errors with this positive perspective.
Making the effort to change is not always evident because we may feel the fear of failure caused by a mistake. The origin of these fears comes from strict formative systems of both the family and the educational environment in which the child receives signals that good grades do not matter so much, but that he has to focus on the bad ones in order to improve them.
Later on, this conviction is transferred to other tasks in which we, as adults, focus only on our weak points in any activity we undertake. These rigorous methods generate threatening environments for learning where mistakes are not conceived as learning opportunities but as failures.
Educational trainers, including those in the ski environment, should encourage the attitude of making mistakes as something natural that happens when performing a new activity because, when a practice is performed for the first time, there is a greater chance of making mistakes. If children assimilate this attitude, they will be better prepared to face new challenges when they reach adulthood.
The attitude of discovering mistakes and criticizing them is a common habit generally applied by people in positions of authority or responsibility. Adopting the attitude of criticizing the mistakes of others generates the false belief that people will perform better.
There are different degrees of errors in skiing since it is not the same to make a mistake in a turn as it is to run over someone by not braking in time. We are prone to adopt different attitudes towards the same error and this is due to our cognitive evaluation that we make of the result of our erroneous action. Continuing with the second example, some may assume the accident as an occasional carelessness while for others, it may be the cause for abandoning the activity due to the uncomfortable feeling of guilt generated by the event.
An important belief that is part of our attitudes towards errors is the concept of capability acquisition. Some consider one’s ability to be an aptitude that can be acquired, while others consider it to be a fixed characteristic of each skier that cannot be modified.
The formers consider mistakes as something natural in every learning process and use them as sources of information to improve, and conclude that in order to evolve they must make a greater effort, seek more information, or use better learning strategies. They consider mistakes as a lack of experience that can be counteracted with more determination, while those who believe that capacity is unchangeable, think that their mistakes are due to their own limitations.
Basically, we can define three attitudes towards mistakes:
- Take them as major failures that generate guilt and frustration.
- Take mistakes as occasional and natural failures in which feelings and emotions will be of less intensity.
- Consider them as opportunities to learn and evolve.
A proactive attitude is to recognize mistakes, transform them into efficient executions, and learn from them to move from a context of failure to one of success. To fail is not to make mistakes but not learning from them. Success is not achieving an error-free skiing but our efficient response to them.
Another widespread attitude is to find excuses for making mistakes. Some examples about this aspect are: insisting that the teaching method is not appropriate, that the objective is too demanding or too easy, that ‘something’ or ‘someone’ caused the loss of our concentration, that we are tired, or that we were unlucky.
Conclusions
- Attitudes express, with greater or lesser intensity, evaluations of the situation which can be positive or negative.
- A positive attitude towards mistakes is to recognize them and learn from them, while a negative attitude is to blame and hold the context responsible.
- As for adversities, the positive attitude is to learn from them, while the negative attitude is to feel victimized.
- Facing challenges one at a time is positive; what is negative is not daring to face them.
- A positive attitude is to recognize that we are good skiers but can always improve; a negative attitude is to tell ourselves that we are not as bad as some.
- Listening to those who know best encourages learning; not paying attention to them prevents growth.
- Reflecting on better ways of doing something is positive; a negative attitude is to affirm that this is the way it has always been done and there is no other way.
