Imagine this: it’s another mundane Tuesday night, and you’ve just come home from soccer practice. To your left is a table filled with a stack of books and a long list of overdue homework assignments. You know you should start them, but after an exhaustingly long day at school you decide to watch just one more episode of your favorite show. Well, one episode turns into a whole season, and suddenly, it’s 2 AM.
You tell yourself tomorrow will be different, but as Wednesday night rolls around, the same thing happens. And again on Thursday night. And Friday night.
It seems as though our lives are hopelessly dictated by the repetition of our mistakes. And, no matter how hard we try, we continue to not study for that English test, and sleep at incredibly late hours each night, regardless of the consequences. So, why is this the case?
We repeat mistakes because regardless of the stress it causes us, we still finish the task on hand. In the past, when we’ve turned in an assignment 3 minutes before midnight, or crammed for a test the night before, and ended up doing well on it, we tell ourselves, ‘what are the chances that I can’t do that again?’ When we are able to still continue on with our days regardless of the bad decisions we make, it becomes easier to convince ourselves that the time and energy it will take to fix the issue is simply not worth it.
Studies have shown that humans are often found repeating the same mistakes because rather than focusing on how to solve the issue at hand, we ponder the “why?” Why did I do that when I knew better? We focus more on the result of our failures rather than the solution to our issue.
In today’s society, mistakes are described as a crucial aspect to growth, or the stepping stone into becoming a “new and improved” version of your past self. However, oftentimes, mistakes become a cycle of failure that we can’t seem to catch a break from. So how do we break the cycle?
“Essentially, this mistake, if it is not dealt with, will become an automated behavior over time, and we will keep making the mistake over and over again,” Dr. Caroline Leaf said.
When pushed aside, mistakes can quickly become habits that are impossibly difficult to break, because our faults can quickly become a comfort blanket. When we become accustomed to the problems in our lives, our brain struggles to accept difficult changes to our daily routine, even if it is for the better.
According to Pragya Agarwal, “Ultimately, our brains are lazy and it takes a lot of cognitive effort to change the script and these shortcuts that we have already built up. And so we are more likely to fall back on the same patterns of behaviors and actions, even when we are conscious of repeating our mistakes.”
From high workloads, rigorous classes, and heaps of homework each night, it isn’t unusual for Oak Park High School students to feel overwhelmed or anxious. Many times, it seems that the only solution is to put everything off to the side and attempt to forget about it, but this only ends up prolonging our stress.
Ultimately, the best way to see a change in the way you lead your life is by changing the way you lead your life. To drive on the road of success, we first have to accept our faults, and work diligently to fix the issue.
