They say that the more mistakes you make, the more successful you become. That might be true, but you must deal with your bad decisions effectively before you can move forward. There’s a process to making the most of your poor decisions. If you can benefit from your good decisions and your poor decisions, life is easy! Unfortunately, our natural instincts make it challenging to benefit from poor choices. We become upset, distract ourselves, withdraw, feel embarrassed, or give up altogether. When you can benefit from poor decisions, there are no poor decisions! Consider these strategies: 

1. Learn the lesson. Every bad decision has a lesson to teach. It can be painful to examine your poor choices. Do you know what’s even more painful? Making the same mistake again. Take a little time to figure out what you can learn from your unwise decision.
2. Move on. There’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on your mistakes. A poor decision that you’ve never made before isn’t a bad thing. It’s just life.
3. Take responsibility. You were part of the problem. There’s no getting around it. Taking responsibility allows you to retain control of the situation. You made the mess, so you can fix it.
4. Talk it out. If you can’t let go of your mistake, spend some time talking with a loyal friend. An outsider often has a more reasonable perspective. Pick up the phone and give someone a call.
5. Stay present. It’s easy to let your mind run wild after making a poor choice. There’s nothing to see there. It’s hard to stay in the present moment when things are going wrong all around you. Allowing your mind to wander is just a form of distraction. Pay attention to what is happening right now.
6. Take preventative measures in the future. How can you prevent a similar occurrence in the future? Did you put yourself into a situation where no good option existed? Or did you merely make the wrong call?
7. Forgive yourself. Everyone makes more than a few mistakes. Accept the consequences of your choice and move forward. It’s impossible to always make perfect decisions.
8. You are not your decisions. You are separate from the choices you make. Bad choices don’t make you bad any more than good decisions make you good. Your decisions don’t define you.

 Bad decisions aren’t all that bad after all. In fact, you can benefit from all your previous bad choices right now. Make a list of every poor decision you’ve ever made. Now, go through the process of learning from each of them. What are the lessons you can learn? Imagine if you had done this same process after each mistake was made. Your life would be very different. Everyone makes bad decisions. The key is to make the most of them. Spend a few minutes each week reviewing your bad choices and learn from them. Most importantly, avoid repeating them. Move on from your bad decisions and benefit from them.