Daily Gratitude: This comes from the great race director and ultra running legend, Lazarus Lake. It’s something that I have to remember as I move through life and wish I’d known before. It makes perfect sense but we’re often taught as children that making mistakes is a horrible thing, a sin, a disaster. The primary learning we get at that point is to be afraid and to try to be perfect “next time”. At that age (and many times it’s at any age) we don’t know that perfection is impossible to attain. Therefore, trying to be perfect is a no-win situation. Often when we’re being yelled at for making that mistake, we’re not being told how to avoid it. We’re just being criticized for doing something wrong. No one calmly takes us by the hand, saying “if you do x or y, it’s more likely you’ll get result z than p”. Wouldn’t that be much more beneficial? So it’s no wonder we beat ourselves up when we make a mistake. However, it is much better for us to say “oh yeah, I messed that up…..BECAUSE I did a and c but forgot b. If I had added b in there AND put them all in the right order, this wouldn’t have happened. Great. Now I know what to do.” Isn’t that more useful than berating ourselves. I think we should be grateful for the mistakes we make because they teach us more. I’m certainly not advocating going out and intentionally making mistakes but when they do happen, celebrate them and learn what you’re supposed to be learning.