I thought that this was an interesting quote by the author Neil Gaiman...

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

Thanks Headbanger. This was a very nice post. I really enjoyed reading the message from Neil Gaiman. So let's all make some mistakes in 2014 indeed..

Very inspiring post!

It reminds me of an interview with Victor Wooten about this similar topic of making mistakes. What he stated in that interview (at least as I remember it) is that making mistakes on the stage is good. It means you are trying to achieve something new and amazing, right in front of the audience. If you make a mistake - who cares, just push through it. It is like a live practice session. Personally, I think mistakes and rather the main contributor to those (being adventurous) are what makes the live performances cool. I wouldn't prefer to hear the exact same songs as they are recorded on a CD - live on stage. That would be sort of "playback" experience which is not really inspiring. On the other hand, this is sort of an artform as I also wouldn't like to hear too many mistakes as well. Mistakes which are product of experiment, reaching new frontiers and great improvisation are always welcome. Same as they are cool - there might also be "uninspiring mistakes" out there too? Like missing a chord for no reason and stuff like that which is not product of adventurism rather lost of concentration on stage etc. So I guess, my personal taste would lie somewhere in the middle - between playing perfectly and having a great stage performance and playing adventourism.

Do we learn through mistake - yes? Do we need to make mistakes when trying to do something we have never done - yes?
Then we should just go for it

Nice quote mate. There is a cool facebook page called "Beautiful minds" from which I took this related quotes:


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quite a cool way to look at it

everytime I hear Neil Gaiman I remember how brilliant I thought his writing was in 'The sandman', the artwork totally confused me but the story was awesome. He's a smart dude.

That is a cool thread Never thought of this...aside from accepting that we're all humans and we do mistakes and we don't only if we do nothing

Good call here Usually, the people who will never get out of their comfort zone, will not make mistakes but will not evolve either. I'd rather bleed a little and be better afterwards

What did you guys have in mind for leaving the comfort zone? I for one, decided to invest all my money into traveling this year:

June - I am planning to follow the Trans Siberian and then stop into Buthan, Lhasa and Tibet.
October - Joining my Sensei on a trip to Tokyo to the Meiji Jingu Enbu - one of Japan's biggest and most important classical martial arts festival.

That is some great advice, as I would have expected from a guy like Neil Gaiman.
I read this advice quite a few times in the past, many wise man say it, sometimes in different forms like "when you don't make mistakes, you're not doing anything" and so on.
I think you learn more from the mistakes you make or the hard times you are going through than from the projects that just run smoothly.

Christian What's the biggest mistake you did in 2013? If of course, you want to tell us

Ha, what's yours?

To be honest, there was no big "oh my god what did I do???" mistake in 2013, but there were some situations in my job that were totally out of my hands and I stressed out way too much about them. What I learned from it is to keep cool and let things rest for a few days before you take action. This indeed was a valuable lesson.
Another mistake I made and the lesson learned was: don't go on a "real" date when you are not looking for a commited relationship.

Very good thoughts here matey I have the bad tendency to be a control freak sometimes.. Trying to get rid of this nasty habit, as last year my relationship ended without me wanting that to happen... I fought hard but it seemed that the more I fought, the worse it went.. so, I am learning to let go of control and just take things as they are. There is timing in everything and we should learn how to see it and act accordingly, in spite of our silly wants..

This is the BEST advice. I use to work for an old narcissist. The man showed up for work everyday and he was in his late 90s. Very difficult person to be around much less work for, but for some bizarre reason he took me under his wing and treated me like a son - I don't know why, but I loved the old fart for it.

Anyway, there were many things he asked me to do as far as marketing goes, and many times I would disagree and tell him it was a waste of money, and he said that if we weren't failing, we weren't trying.

I stopped offering my input on some of his hair brained ideas and just went with the flow, and I learned a lot from that old man, and it was true. He was a multimillionaire, a true success story that grew up in poverty, and his advice made sense.

If you aren't failing, you aren't trying.

Amazing story! It's always great to learn from this kind of people! They've been there and done that!