1. One of your most valuable resources for attaining your goals.
Making Mistakes
One of your most valuable resources for attaining your goals.

2. Some things that require making mistakes…
Learning
Personal recognition
Adventure
Valuable relationships
Accomplishing new goals
Personal satisfaction
Respect
Happiness

3. Key Ingredient: Growth Mindset

4. Group Activity Top section of handout “A Mistake You Fear Making”
Think of a task, an assignment, a challenge that you will be involved with during the next week
Pick the situation during which you most want to AVOID making a mistake
Write this on your worksheet
Share with your group
Choose one member from your group to share what your group comes up with

5. Novelty A result of a growth mindset
Core characteristic of those who do things that others said could not be done
Our brains try to conserve energy by seeking out what is already familiar
Reinforces what often mistaken beliefs we have about the world and what’s possible
Pursuing novelty is key to our success

6. Novelty Researcher Gregory Berns says:
“To see things differently that other people, the most effective solution is to bombard the brain with things it has never encountered before. Novelty releases the perceptual process from the shackles of past experience and forces the brain to make new judgments.” (Berns, 2010, 8)

7. Novelty
Not only does novelty give us a new way of perceiving and interpreting the world differently, it actually increases the levels of dopamine in the brain and physiologically creates a greater feeling of satisfaction (Berns, 2006).

8. Fear of Making Mistakes
Trying new things can be scary
Our brains want to be able to predict what will happen
Novelty requires engaging in things we’re not yet good at
We can learn new ways to understand our fears and choose to risk mistakes to be able to try new things, have new experiences
Fears: looking bad, losing favor with others

9. Secret Antidote
There is a way to change how you feel about making mistakes:
Celebrate them!
Acknowledge them openly
Have a sense of humor
Affirm yourself and others for taking risks
Help each other to shift from being ashamed to being proud of the risks you take

10. Group Activity Bottom section of handout “Taking Risks”
As a group, come up with at least 4 new things you could try as a way to practice novelty
These would be things you would not normally do – which would increase the likelihood of making some mistakes
Each member of your group contributes at least one example
Choose one member from your group to share what your group comes up with

11. Your Mistakes Are Like Diamonds
We don’t want to toss them away or hide them
They have incredible value to us
Like diamonds – hard to realize their value before they are cut and polished
Powerful possibilities

12. HOMEWORK! Mind Your Mistakes & Mine Your Mistakes
Watch for mistakes you make – 2 weeks!
Then record on your worksheet record as many of the details that the worksheet is looking for about your mistakes
This is also a contest with a prize!!
Individual with the most points, and the
Group with the most points

13. HOMEWORK!
You can earn one point for gathering each of the following bits of information about your mistake:
Describe the mistake
Note if it was something you would not normally have done (Novelty)
Indicate if you acknowledged the mistake to another person
If someone witnessed your mistake, have them acknowledge it by signing their initials on your form
If you learned something from your mistake, describe what you learned