Move past your mistakes

I can't say it any better than this:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

What that means to me is to learn from a mistake and then move on. There's too many miles to go to keep circling around past errors with regrets, should have's, embarassments; berating myself for not doing it right. It's too late for that.

Sometimes I spend too much time with those type of regrets. It's like I think if I keep making myself feel bad about a mistake it'll prevent me from making that mistake again.

The trick is to recognize the same mistake the next time before it gets made. If I can concentrate on the future, I won't get bogged down in the past.

The next step after that is to then not make that same mistake.

Easier said than done, of course. But I have to think it, understand it, say it to myself, before I can do it.