Making Mistakes
Katherine Liao A1 Speech Objective: Persuasive Speaking
I. Opening:
To start with, would you please refresh your memories about what you’ve done and
said in the past three days. “Who has had smooth or even perfect three days without
making any minor or major mistakes?” Please raise your hands. (Response from
the audience) I made several mistakes these days; I mistyped some words in the
documents and brought some inconveniences to my colleagues again; I forgot to place
the recharged batteries into the digital camera, so my colleague couldn’t take photos
of some important events. These are only two of the embarrassing and humiliating
experiences of making mistakes in my workplace.
In fact, I can make a long list of
the minor mistakes I made either in my job or in my life!
Do I sound depressed?
No. You don’t have to worry about me.
Reflecting on my own mistakes and studying some articles as well, I’ve discovered
some interesting facts.
Ambitious and successful people tend to take positive attitude toward mistakes.
They undergo some psychological processes to deal with mistakes they’ve made.
*** Strategies/psychological processes to deal with mistakes: (positive suggestions)
 They view mistakes as opportunities in disguise
Mistake = Failure? No. To them, failures are events to them. They will not
discourage themselves from trying again and again after some failures.
Instead, they regard failures as blessings in disguise and bounce back.
 The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy,
inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.
(Dr. Joyce
Brothers)
Famous people who made mistakes turned out to be successful:
Now consider these examples of moving ahead after mistakes:
Henry Ford I, the mechanical genius who "conquered the world" with the
automobile, neglected to put a reverse gear in his first model; and
Thomas Edison, who spent more than $1 million on an invention that
proved of little value late in his career. “Results! Why men, I have
gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work. “
 Successful people have the ability or tolerance to face their own mistakes
without losing enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is one of the essentials of the most
powerful success forces.
 Successful people have the wisdom to learn from others’ mistakes, but they
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do not confine themselves due to the others’ mistakes. They dare to take
risks and challenges.
*** Admitting mistakes:
However, for some people, they take a totally different view on making mistakes.
They deny the responsibility for making mistakes; that’s quite understandable,
but they are likely to repeat the same mistakes. Now I’d like to mention some
praise-worthy people who plucked up their courage to admit their mistakes.
(1) Some criminals turned themselves up to the police after seeing the soul-stirring
movie with profound messages, “The Passion of the Christ”. Unbelievable?
Their conscience was aroused, so they faced their mistakes.
(2) The poor college student who lost the bet and therefore had to show his “sex
organ” in public has already swallowed the bitterness of admitting the mistake and
receiving the punishment.
Can you tolerate others’ mistakes?
Please look at this cartoon.
What an insult! Never ever do this to your employees or anyone around you.
Can I tolerate others’ mistakes?
Sure, since my friends and family members are so
tolerant of my mistakes.
*** Are my students permitted to make mistakes?
As far as tolerating others’ mistakes is concerned, can I tolerate my students’
mistakes in learning English? Yes. Can I tolerate their mistakes in behavior? Yes.
I agree that my students have the right to make some mistakes. But they are not
supposed to make their errors fossilized and stop learning. They are expected to
learn some valuable lessons from the mistakes.
 Why is perfectionism a problem?
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Are you aware that “mistake” will never be the word in some people’s
dictionaries. They are categorized as “perfectionists”, who pursue perfection
in whatever they are doing.
(a) They hold the belief that they must attain perfection, otherwise, they
are failures. They have strong self-critical attitude which leads to
stress, anxiety, depression and their performance is affected as a
result. Sometimes they may focus so much on the details that they
can’t complete tasks.
(b) In fact, procrastination is one of the features associated with
perfectionism.
The perfectionists may postpone doing their
assignments until the last moment in order not to make any mistake;
or sometimes they postpone as a way to save face. It’s often easier
to rationalize by saying,” I would have done better if I had more time.”
(c) Another feature linked with perfectionism is paralysis. So-called
perfectionists may get every reason to quit trying even simple
assignments. They just dysfunction!
I hope you can strike the balance between perfectionism and facing the
Reality and your responsibilities. .
Some suggestions to the perfectionists offered by some psychologists are the
following:
( Don’t be fearful of making mistakes. Instead, regard making mistakes as a
positive influence in life and learn from them.
At the same time, challenge
yourself to take risks and explore the potentials to be successful in careers and
in personal relationships. )
*** Conclusion:
Is it OK to make mistakes! Yes, it’s human to err.
Although you may feel
foolish at times, and constantly moving out of the comfort zone and making choices,
it’s worthwhile to learn from different experiences and mistakes
Experience is the name given to the mistakes. (Oscar Wilde 1854-1900)
Are you ready to convert Making mistakes?
into Making mistakes!
(Give failure a second opportunity
If you fail and therefore take the bitter pill of failure, nothing can be learned. Why
not consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back?
If you do so, you
have got the essentials of the most powerful success forces. (Joseph Sugarman))
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