Some people make the same mistake again and again despite understanding the repercussions, which can be ascribed to a variety of circumstances. These include a lack of self-awareness, difficulties altering patterns, a scarcity of resources, mental health concerns, and a history of trauma or traumatic events.
Some people may be unaware of the harmful effects of their acts or may not completely comprehend the reasons for their conduct. Habits, especially ones connected with powerful emotions or rewards, may be difficult to break. Limited resources, which include money, time, as well as support, can also stymie transformation.
Addiction, despair, and anxiety are all mental health issues that can make it challenging for someone to modify their behavior. It is critical to remember that everyone is unique, and the causes for recurrent errors might be complicated and multi-faceted.
We all know, everyone ever makes mistakes, and for sure, multiple times. But what makes someone make the same mistake over and over again? You learn from the mistakes that you make. At least, that's what most of people have been taught.
However, evidence reveals that we frequently failed to learn from our mistakes. Instead, we are prone to keep making the same errors.
What do I have in mind by making mistakes in this context? I believe we can all agree with the fact that we instantly learn that putting our hand up on a hot cooking surface, for example, results in burns and that we're unlikely to make the same mistake again.
What makes someone make the same mistake over and over again?
As a result of previous experiences, our brains construct a threat-response to physically unpleasant stimuli. However, when it's derived to our thinking, behavioral habits, including decision making, we frequently make the same mistakes, for instance being late to an appointment, leaving things till the last minute, or evaluating others through our first impressions.
The rationale is found in how our brain analyzes information and generates templates that we resort to repeatedly. These templates constitute basically shortcuts that assist us in making real-world judgments. However, these shortcuts, also referred to as heuristics, might cause us to repeat our mistakes.
Humans aren't naturally sensible, despite what we might like to believe. We filter out all the noise because information overload is tiresome and perplexing. We see only a small portion of the world. We are prone to recognizing things that repeat, regardless of whether there are patterns, and we also tend to keep memory by making inferences and relying on type.
We also employ cognitive shortcuts as well as draw conclusions from scarce evidence to build a version of existence that we subconsciously wish to believe with. This reduces the amount of information coming in, allowing us to connect the dots as well as fill in the gaps with what we already know.
Furthermore, our brains are generally lazy, and changing the script or the shortcuts which we have developed requires plenty of cognitive work. As a result, even if we are aware that we keep repeating our mistakes, we are more prone to revert to the exact same patterns of behavior and activity. This is known as confirmation bias, and it refers to our inclination to affirm what we already think rather than shifting our brain to include new facts and ideas.
We also frequently use "gut instinct", a form of instinctive, subconscious reasoning that draws on our prior experiences when making judgments and decisions in unfamiliar circumstances.
Because of an "ego effect" that encourages us to continue with our previous ideas, we may stick with specific behavior patterns and repeat our mistakes. We are prone to pick information formats and responses that assist us in protecting our egos.
One study discovered that if people were reminded about their earlier triumphs, they were more inclined to replicate those successful behaviors.
However, when individuals were mindful of or deliberately made conscious of their previous failures, they were less inclined to change the pattern of behavior that led to failure. As a result, people were still inclined to repeat that behavior.
This is because we are prone to feeling down when we recall our prior failures. Along in those situations, we are more prone to engage in behavior which lets us feel safe and familiar. Even if we think deliberately and slowly, our minds have a predisposition toward previous knowledge and templates, despite whether they resulted in errors. This is known as the familiarity bias.
We may, however, learn from our mistakes. In a particular experiment, humans and monkeys had to estimate the net path of travel of noisy, moving dots in a screen. The researchers observed both of them slowed down following a mistake.
The higher error rate, the longer will be the post-error slowdown, indicating that more data was being gathered. However, the knowledge was of poor quality. Our psychological shortcuts can drive us to ignore fresh knowledge that could assist us avoid making the same mistakes.
Indeed, once we make a mistake when executing a task, "frequency bias" causes us to repeat mistakes whenever we execute the activity again.
Simply put, our brains begin to believe that prior errors are the proper way to execute a job, forming a persistent "mistake pathway." Therefore, the more we perform the same activities, the more probable we are to travel the error pathway, until it gets so firmly implanted that it forms an arrangement of permanent mental shortcuts on our brains.
The Cognitive Control
What can be performed in this situation? We do possess a mental skill known as the "cognitive control" which lets us to override heuristic shortcuts. And some new mouse experiments in neuroscience are providing us a clearer picture of what regions of human brains are engaged in that.
Researchers have also discovered two brain areas with "self-error tracking neurons", brain cells that detect faults. These regions are located in the frontal brain and seem to be an element of a processing cascade ranging from focusing to acquiring knowledge from our errors.
Researchers are investigating whether a greater understanding of this may aid in the creation of improved therapies and care for Alzheimer's disease, for example, because cognitive control is essential for well-being for later life.
Although we don't fully comprehend the brain mechanisms associated with cognitive control as well as self-correction, there are still certain things we can accomplish.
The first step is to get more at ease with making errors. We may believe that it's a negative attitude toward failure, yet it is actually a more optimistic approach. Because our culture demeans failures as well as mistakes, we are more inclined to feel guilty and humiliated, and the harder we attempt to hide our errors from everyone else, the more probable it is that we will repeat them. When we aren't so down on ourselves, we all are more inclined to be open to fresh knowledge that might help us remedy our mistakes.
It might sometimes be beneficial to take some time off from executing an activity that we wish to improve. Recognizing and reflecting on our errors might help us minimize frequency bias, making us less probable to repeat those errors and reinforce our error pathways.
How to avoid repeating the same mistake?
It takes time to prevent ourselves from repeating the same error. It takes effort and dedication. So, where to begin, given all of this information?
1. Concentrate on The Future
It is acceptable to learn from one's errors. But what happens if we are continually focusing on 'what we failed to do and why'? We are really increasing our chances of repeating the same error. You might be interested in learning more about visualization, a technique for picturing happy situations that is currently employed by some therapists.
2. Discover Effective Goal-Setting Techniques
A fantastic method of focusing on what's to come is to understand how to set objectives that we are both thrilled about and likely to attain. This includes learning how to create smart objectives and then troubleshooting goals when things don't go as planned.
3. Experiment with Mindfulness
As we've witnessed in psychology, emotions may both aid and hinder decision-making. Committing for a mindfulness practice helps us become more present at the moment as well as less in control over our racing brains and unpleasant emotions.
4. Develop Self-Compassion
Remember that terrible judgments are more likely when we engage in 'toddler brain' or act on our emotions. And beating yourself up remains one way to set off the storm of emotions and powerlessness that increases the likelihood of this happening.
Self-compassion has recently been a popular issue in therapeutic circles, owing to the fact that it appears to be a speedier path to higher self-esteem. It entails treating yourself as well as your dearest friends.
5. Seek Assistance
Accountability is another excellent tool for getting you on path to making better decisions. Working alongside a counselor as well as psychotherapist gives this weekly accountability. This also assists you in identifying the causes of your bad decision making and troubleshooting any mental health concerns that may be compounding the problem.
Another Tips to Avoid Making the Same Mistakes Again:
- Write down a list of the sorts of mistakes that you keep making over and over again.
- Recognize and accept the fact that you made such mistakes without complaining to yourself.
- Determine the extent to which these frequent errors harm your self-esteem, mental health, profession, finances, as well as relationships.
- Determine whether there are factors, a certain setting, a few specific individuals, or your own feelings that cause you to engage in unresourceful or negative behaviors, choices, and activities that result in unfavorable outcomes.
- Commit to discovering effective solutions to these triggers.
- Recognize that everyone makes errors and that the majority of errors are only temporary setbacks. Admit that if your goal is to do big things, you are going to fail and make a lot of mistakes.
- Commit to repairing and making amends for any faults made.
- Determine to recover from any mistakes and setbacks.
- Determine the things you are doing correctly and when you are making errors.
- Determine whether you're a perfectionist. If that's the case, concentrate your efforts on achieving productivity excellence.
- Recognize your mistake-making repetitive behavior, because one-time mistakes usually do not interrupt your life much unless what you did wrong is quite serious.
- Determine your long-term objectives.
- Work backwards towards your end outcomes to determine all of the milestones which you need to achieve your big desire.
- Determine the resource, skill, and attitude gaps that must be filled in order to grow, prosper, and attain your objectives.
- List all of the obstacles that might derail you.
- Recognize your attitudes, habits, assumptions, as well as perceptions that drive you into making mistakes.
- Investigate several approaches to achieving all of your motivating objectives.
- Create daily, weekly, monthly, or annual action plan to help you achieve your goals.
- Establish reasonable norms and expectations.
- Make a plan for dealing with emotional triggers.
- Determine which behaviors are hindering your advancement. Replace old unhealthy behaviors with fresh and healthy ones, and make the new behavior straightforward and simple to implement.
- Accept difficulties that strain you in order to build tolerance for long-term success.
- Make a strategy for a better option that you will use if the same issue comes again in the future.
- Decide how you wish to handle situations in the future.
- Recognize the negative consequences of the error. Recognize the advantages of avoiding these recurring errors.
- Look for opportunities for improvement by analyzing, reflecting upon, and examining your errors before taking action to fix them. Communicate properly with all people who have been impacted by these errors.
- Discover how to develop cognitive control. Stop obsessing on previous errors.
- Instead, train your cognitive system to get future-focused as well as adopt an attitude of taking action for your long-term goals.
- Recharge your batteries by seeing and acting on a stronger future.
- Develop a growth attitude as opposed to a benefit perspective.
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