“I don’t think it was supposed to do that.”
If you’ve ever taught any kind of software to a group, you might have heard this phrase a time or two. You might be bent over one learner’s computer, walking them through something, then you hear another learner pipe up, their voice either timid and nervous that they may have broken the Entire Internet, or dismissive with a laugh and a wave of the hand. As a software trainer, you want to reassure the learners that it happens, and that whatever they’ve clicked on and accidentally done, it can be undone.
It can, can’t it?
Whenever a learner is learning something new, we want to give them a safe space to practice – practice is how that learners gets better at the thing they’re learning! There can be a lot to unpack in the word “safe” nowadays, but here, “safe” just means, “A learner can be confident that it’s okay to make mistakes.” You hear it all the time – mistakes are how people learn, the most successful people make the most mistakes on their way to success, don’t cry over that spilled milk. We all know this, we’ve been taught these ideas since we were in the single digits, but they’re so, so easy to forget. So let’s have a little refresher on why mistakes are so valuable.
Mistakes are Memorable
When I was eleven I was home alone after school, and I went to microwave a couple of Pop-Tarts (yes, I microwaved them instead of toasting them, we’re losing the point). I thought it might save on paper towels if I just laid them on their wrapper in the microwave. If you remember anything about Pop-Tarts, dear reader, you may remember that their wrapper is a nice shiny foil, and foil doesn’t play well with microwaves. It created quite the light show, at least for about two and a half seconds before I ran to turn it off.
But guess what? I never microwaved metal ever again. It was luckily not an expensive mistake, but it was a super emotionally resonant one, and one that I think about just about every time I crack open a microwave door. This mistake is forever etched into my memory, and informs my safety protocols with rapid food preparation to this day. By the way, I love hearing about mistakes others have made that turned into important learning experiences, so please feel free to comment below if you have one.
Mistakes Improve Our Problem-Solving
Let’s go back to our software training scenario. A learner clicks on something, it pops up a little error message, and the learner then has to decode that message and figure out what the software needs. It’s a pain the first time it happens, but what about the next time? The learner might see that error message somewhere else in the software and say, “Oh, that’s familiar. What did I do to fix that last time?” And now they have more context for their present situation because of the mistake they made before.
Making mistakes is like mapping out a maze. You learn where the dead ends are, you become closer to finding the exit, plus you get some great exercise (metaphorical exercise for your mind, in this case). So not only do mistakes help you solve THIS maze, but they help you get good at solving mazes IN GENERAL. This is why the adage exists that successful people are the ones who make the most mistakes. It’s true.
If you don’t believe me, go find The Guru. You know The Guru – the one at your workplace everyone goes to when something is wrong in Excel, or Word, or whatever applications your company uses. The next time you talk to The Guru, and The Guru solves a problem for you, ask them how they know that. They will inevitably say a variation on, “I had that problem myself once.” They know that system inside and out because of all the mistakes they have made inside of it.
Mistakes are Science!
What is science except constant learning? And what is learning except finding out you were wrong about something, and adjusting your actions to fit your new knowledge?
Everything in our modern world – our technology, our medical advances, our space exploration – exists because of mistakes. Science is messy – we think a thing, we try it out, we find out we were wrong, and we try again. And again. And again. The road to our modern world is littered on both sides with early ideas, prototypes, discarded hypotheses, and results reports crumpled and thrown in fits of rage. We didn’t go to the moon in spite of mistakes along the way – we went to the moon BECAUSE of mistakes along the way. Author Jason Pargin, when talking about Marvel movies, said, “Tony Stark’s superpower is iteration.” The reason the Iron Man suit existed was not because he was a god, or injected with super serum, or hit with gamma rays. It’s because he put in the work and failed again and again and again.
I might sound a little grandiose here, so let’s dial it back. When you’re trying out a new skill – embroidery, roller blading, gardening – embrace making mistakes. Understand that you will, in all likelihood, be a messy embroiderer to start, or a bruised-up roller blader, or a gardener of very, very tiny ears of corn (like I was). The more mistakes you make, the better embroiderer, roller blader, gardener you will be. Mistakes are at the heart of growth and progress, so let’s invite them back and give them a seat at the table. They’re the reason we have tables, after all.