Can Bad Judgement Sometimes Be a Good Thing?

I’m sure everyone has at one time felt the pain of learning from mistakes. They can be tough pills to swallow. Especially when the stakes are high and there is a lot of pressure on you to make sound decisions. In that fateful moment of realization, feelings of dread, defeat, and disappointment all hit you like a ton of bricks.

From the small mistakes to the big ones, there is always that “Doh!” moment when you realize your error in judgement will now lead to unnecessary hardship or rework. I have had that feeling a lot lately at work, particularly this week, where much of my time has been devoted to rework because of bad judgement on my part.

So, how can my bad judgement and the consequences actually be working in my favor?

The answer was revealed within an e-mail I received from one of my managers. He felt the team’s dynamic was becoming a bit negative and decided to address it with the following quote:

“Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.”

When I read that, I almost jumped out of my seat! Although simple and trivial to some, this quote really spoke to me. How are we going to learn how to think and act appropriately if we don’t sometimes think and act in error? I knew at that point that sometimes I will make bad decisions; that is just a part of life. Everyone does it. It happens. However, using these bad decisions to make good decisions in the future is what wisdom is all about.

Now, of course I’m not advocating we all go out and make as many bad decisions as possible; that would just be stupid. I’m simply learning that I should not let the fear of bad judgement keep me from the path to experience. Furthermore, when mistakes do happen, I need to learn from them and move on. Worrying about the impacts are not going to help the situation and only add to the amount of pressure already applied.

So I guess bad judgement isn’t that bad then, huh?