Who doesn’t like Pixar? (Actually, I do know one person who doesn’t, but it seems like just about everyone is a fan, with good reason.) How is it that a movie studio has been able to have such a run of critical and commercial successes?

Well, it’s built into their culture – and it turns out that they take a very different approach to mistakes than many of us. Rather than try to avoid mistakes, cover them up, or point fingers to blame others for mistakes, they’ve created an environment that expects mistakes, makes a point of exposing them early in the process and corrects them promptly. In other words, at Pixar mistakes are not bad, they’re normal.

I think there’s a great lesson there.

We must get past our mindset about failure and mistakes as being ‘bad’ if we are going to be happier and improve our relationships. Mistakes are inevitable. They aren’t the problem. In fact, they are a critical part of how we learn.

If we avoid making mistakes – we don’t grow.
If we avoid exploring our mistakes – we don’t grow.
If we blame others for our mistakes – well, you get the point.

I’m not encouraging anyone to deliberately engage in non-relational behavior here, but I do think it’s important to understand that mistakes are much less fatal to relationships than people’s refusal to acknowledge them, repair them, and learn from them.

If we feel we can’t make mistakes, we stop taking risks. When we stop taking risks, we stop growing. When we stop growing, our world starts shrinking and becomes a place full of anxiety and distress. Not good. You can change it – you can talk to your partner and your family and create a different meaning for mistakes and a different way for handling them. What might you do differently if you knew it was ok to ‘fail’ ?