I don't like making mistakes. In fact, I think I dislike it more than most people.

Yet, in any discipline that includes new and novel and pioneering things, mistakes must be made. This is not a good thing, per se. But it's not a bad thing either. It's just a thing.

Mistakes happen.

Embarrassment is something else entirely. The vast majority of mistakes won't be noticed by anyone else, but embarrassment is when you do something that you don't like how it reflects on you to other people.

While most mistakes can be fixed and then mostly shrugged off, I think embarrassment cuts people much deeper. In fact, I've heard plenty of anecdotes of a person getting embarrassed the first time they tried to do something, and then not trying again for a few years. Or quitting entirely, even.

Yet, I think if you're doing something important at a reasonably quick pace, there will be embarrassment from time to time. The good news is that a lot of embarrassing moments don't actually have long term negative consequences, and these events become funny stories later. And being willing to suffer through mistakes and embarrassment leads to lots of success.

For about two months back in 2006, at the end of the day I reflected on all the mistakes I made and jotted down some notes. I think I'm going to start doing that again, celebrating mistakes and errors and embarrassing situations. I think if I keep a little journal of this for even just a week or two, it'll be a lot of fun to look back on in the near future.