Salvador Dali was a prolific artist.

He produced 1500 paintings throughout his career.

He also produced illustrations for books, theater set designs and costumes, many drawings, dozens of sculptures, and various other projects, including an animated film for Disney!

Although he’s considered one of the greatest artists of all time, he considered himself a bad painter.

And he valued mistakes.

In his quote above, he essentially thinks of mistakes as sacred.

I love this way of seeing mistakes.

Think of it this way. Let’s say for the next year, everything you did went right. You didn’t make a single mistake. You did the right things and they all went the way you expected.

Wouldn’t that be very boring? Nothing new would ever happen for the whole year.

And secondly, the only way to avoid mistakes would be to do what is already familiar and known to you.

Mistakes are at the heart of learning, discovery and growth.

So you wouldn’t be pushing your boundaries or trying anything new, in case you’d make a mistake.

So I agree, with Dali. Mistakes are indeed sacred. Mistakes are at the heart of learning, discovery and growth.

Here’s 3 mindful suggestions to help you to see mistakes as sacred opportunities to learn

Try something new in your mindful practice. In our daily mindfulness club, we have a new meditation everyday. We reflect on new quotes and try new techniques. Bring some variety into your mindful practice. Try different meditations. Do new activities in a mindful way. Listen to different guided exercises.
Journal about a past mistake. Take a past mistake and write about what happened and what you noticed. What did you learn from the mistake? How did you grow as a person? What made the mistake a sacred one?
Make a mistake on purpose. You could do a drawing really badly. You could write a poem and fill it with spelling mistakes. You could try cooking something new without looking at the recipe. See any mistake you make as a sacred learning opportunity for next time.

If you want to reflect further on these ideas, here’s a guided meditation based on this quote and idea of mistakes as being sacred.