Investing: Willingness To Learn From Past Mistakes

Posted the other day: Mark Sellers: So You Want To Be The Next Warren Buffett?

• A third trait is the willingness to learn from past mistakes. The thing that is so hard for people and what sets some investors apart is an intense desire to learn from their own mistakes so they can avoid repeating them. Most people would much rather just move on and ignore the dumb things they’ve done in the past. I believe the term for this is “repression.” But if you ignore mistakes without fully analyzing them, you will undoubtedly make a similar mistake later in your career. And in fact, even if you do analyze them it’s tough to avoid repeating the same mistakes. (page 4)

I find this most interesting.

Everyone knows the importance of the willingness to learn from past mistakes.

However, many a times, I have witnessed that most of us simply cannot acknowledge the fact that there is a possibility that one is making a mistake in their judgement.

And many a times, they tend to blame poor market sentiments as the sole reasoning for their below par performance and they tend not to acknowledge the possibility of them making an error in their own judgement.

And so if one does not want to accept the possibility of being wrong, how then can one learn from one's past mistakes?