Be willing to make mistakes

Dr Tae Yun Kim is a martial artist, an author, a speaker and much more. Here is an excerpt from her book, The Silent Master.

When I say be willing to make mistakes, I mean let your mistake lead you into new understandings and new actions. As long as you're making different mistakes, you can be sure you're on a path of learning. It's a natural part of the process. Of course, you don't want to keep repeating the same mistakes. If that happens, it's a signal you're not learning from the mistake the way you should.
All that you judge to be a mistake in your life is nothing more and nothing less than an event which teaches you something. Unfortunately, we usually label our mistakes as bad things that happen, as opposed to good things that happen. But judgments of good and bad are unnecessary. “Whatever you call a mistake is really just neutral feedback about the result of a certain direction you've taken. Whether an event or a direction is judged to be good or bad is probably beyond your perception at the moment. To illustrate what I mean, consider the following scenario.

Suppose you're laid off from your job. Bad? But then someone offers you a new job that pays more money. Good? But then you find at this new job you work for a tyrannical boss. Bad? But then this boss retires and turns the business over to you. Good? But then the building catches fire and burns down. Bad? But then you collect insurance money that lets you start the business you always wanted. Good? But then...but then...Life in this material dimension will always be a succession of "but thens."

In this example, you can see how all the events taken by themselves are neither good nor bad even though you may judge them so. They are simply a series of events leading in a certain direction, and all judgments of good or bad are totally irrelevant in the long run. Losing your job in the beginning was “not a mistake because it ultimately opened you to the business you always wanted.