海角大神

Every single one of us makes mistakes.

We sleep in too late. We forget to call someone. We spend more money than we should. We eat a ridiculously unhealthy meal. We don鈥檛 put in full effort at work. We forget an appointment.聽

Whenever I make a significant mistake, two things happen. First, I have to deal with the consequences of the mistake. I have to make things right, in other words. Second, I look for ways so that I don鈥檛 have to repeat that mistake.聽

After all, in the words of George Santayana: 鈥淭hose who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.鈥�

Sometimes I鈥檓 successful at finding ways to avoid repeating mistakes. Sometimes, I鈥檓 not and the mistake repeats itself.

Still, I鈥檝e found that after watching my own repeated fumbles and occasional successes at overcoming mistakes, one simple thing works above all else in terms of eliminating a repeat of that mistake.

I simply change something about my routine.

厂辞尘别迟丑颈苍驳听I聽did in the course of my regular routine caused me to make this mistake, so it is vital that I dig down and figure out what part of my routine caused that mis-step and make sure it doesn鈥檛 happen again.

That鈥檚 harder than it sounds, and it鈥檚 also kind of vague, so I鈥檒l give you a detailed example.

Let鈥檚 say I bought more books than I should have while visiting a bookstore. It鈥檚 a common mistake I used to make.

At first, I believed the poor routine to be the fact that I drove by a bookstore on my way home from work, which made it really easy to give into temptation.

This drastically reduced the frequency of overspending at bookstores, but it didn鈥檛 solve the problem.

Next, I figured that the problem might be solo trips to bookstores, but that turned out not to be the problem, either.

Eventually, I figured it out.聽If I am in a bookstore and I allow myself to browse, I am simply going to talk myself into buying a book. The longer I browse, the more books wind up under my arm.

The solution, then, is to only go to bookstores when I have a spending allowance and only when I have a specific item in mind that I鈥檓 looking for. In other words,聽the problem was the routine of browsing in a bookstore.

Once I realized that, I changed one simple thing about my routine.聽I do not go into bookstores at all unless I鈥檝e decided in advance that I can spend a certain amount there or I have a very specific purchase that causes me to completely avoid browsing.聽If neither of those things are true, I simply don鈥檛 go to bookstores. They鈥檙e very dangerous places for my wallet.

I made a mistake, so I looked at the routine that led me to that mistake 鈥� driving by a bookstore each day. I changed that routine and it cut down on the mistakes.

I made that mistake again, though, so I looked at my routine again. I saw that I was often making solo trips to bookstores and spending money, so I changed聽that聽routine and it cut down on that mistake even more.

Eventually, through looking at my routines and habits, I was basically able to eliminate one of the biggest money leaks in my life. The key?聽Whenever I noticed a mistake, I looked at the routine or pattern in my life that led to that mistake, then I looked for a way to change that routine or pattern.

You can do the same, no matter what your mistake is.

The post聽The Single Most Powerful Way to Avoid Repeating Mistakes聽appeared first on聽The Simple Dollar.