406. How to Learn From Your Mistakes

UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone

Kara Loewentheil

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Education, Self-improvement, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you avoid making decisions because you're scared of repeating past mistakes? This week, I show you how to break that cycle and actually learn from your failures so you can make better decisions moving forward. Most of us are terrified of making mistakes, so we avoid risks, which keeps us stuck. But the truth is, mistakes aren’t the problem—it’s how we think about them.

I’ll walk you through how to reflect on what went wrong, how to separate yourself from the shame of failure, and how to use that knowledge to make smarter, more confident decisions in the future. You’ll also learn how to stop telling yourself, “I can’t trust myself to make decisions,” and why this thought is holding you back. It’s time to stop avoiding mistakes and start seeing them as opportunities for growth.

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/406

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know that sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize you've made a mistake?
0:05.7	Maybe it's shame, maybe it's regret.
0:08.5	Whatever feeling that is, most of us will do anything to avoid it.
0:13.0	Which means that we can end up making future decisions, mostly on the basis of trying to avoid making a mistake and avoid feeling that feeling again.
0:22.5	That leads to inaction, paralysis, and confusion.
0:26.1	And we stop making the kinds of decisions that could actually improve our lives.
0:30.6	So in today's episode, I want to talk about a different way to think about your past mistakes.
0:34.6	And most importantly, how to actually dissect them and learn from them
0:38.9	so you can make better decisions in the future. This is a life-changing exercise, so let's get into it.
0:46.2	Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host, Kara Lowenthal, master-certified coach, and founder of the
0:52.8	School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you
0:56.2	turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're
1:02.3	truly excited to live. Let's go. Welcome back, my friends. Today we're talking about mistakes, one of my favorite topics, and how to learn from them so that you don't repeat them in the future. Learning from my mistakes is one of the most powerful abilities I have as an entrepreneur, building and leading a business, and as a human in relationship with others. And those are the two most
1:29.0	important areas of my life. But I did not come by this ability naturally. I grew up with a very
1:35.3	perfectionistic thought process where I had to get everything right or I was a failure and everything
1:40.5	would end in disaster. And this meant I could only do things I already knew I was good at or was very sure would
1:47.3	work out.
1:48.4	And since I was not very old or experienced at the time, that was a pretty limited set of
1:53.7	things that I thought it was safe to do.
1:56.2	So I didn't try things that I wasn't naturally skilled at.
1:59.8	I didn't take risks. And if I ever performed
2:03.1	anything less than perfectly, I was filled with shame and basically avoided that area forever.
	...

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