1/ When we attempt to do anything new - and often when we repeat something we have done before! - it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. I have made plenty in life and I continue to make them.

So many that I came up with "how to make mistakes" and I will infict that now!

2/ First, try to make small mistakes and learn bigger lessons from them. That way you make the mistake pay for itself.

What is a small mistake? Anyone that doesn't kill you or permanently haunt you is a small mistake. Now it is obvious why I like small mistakes.

3/ Second, try not to make the same mistake twice. That's not as easy as it sounds because to be sure we don't make the same mistake twice, we need to accept that we made a mistake in the first place.

For most of us, even accepting that we made a mistake to _ourselves_ is hard.

4/ Third, try to make recoverable mistakes when possible. That's not always possible but when you have a choice of actions, choose an action that, if it later proves to be a mistake, is easy to recover from.

As an example, lease equipment vs buying it when you are not sure.

5/ One way to accept a mistake is to ask yourself ahead of time when you perform an action "Under what conditions will I come to view this action as a mistake?" and try to write it down for yourself. This way it becomes easier to later accept a mistake and not attach your ego.

6/ Finally, if you're in a leadership role, try to extend the freedom you have to make mistakes to people who work for you.

This is again hard. We tend to view our own mistakes as honest mistakes even when we accept them and we view other people's mistakes as character flaws.