Talking about journaling

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 # The mistakes along the way
 
-Discuss making mistakes, how to best make mistakes, and the best ways to learn from those mistakes
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 ## Whoops!
 
 It's bound to happen. Something that you thought was good didn't work the way you planned and now you're realizing that you've made a terrible error. Sometimes it's something that could have been avoided (committing in code that was meant for debugging for instance). The ones that really frighten me though are the ones that I did not expect at all. It's the side-effect from using a module in a way that you later learn wasn't intended to be used that way. It's the realization that this small module will be part of a larger module and your code isn't designed to make a smooth transition.
@@ -35,3 +33,15 @@ I'm not going to lie. Failure sucks. It makes us feel like we're somehow less of
 We don't usually let failure be part of the learning process. Failing feels a lot like and end-point of the journey. In school a failing grade doesn't usually mean "I need to practice this some more"; it usually means that we're going to cause shame and discomfort to ourselves and our loved ones. I think there's a huge disservice we give ourselves if we don't acknowledge that failure is part of a process and that it's OK to fail. Not everything we do will be perfect. Mistakes will creep into the best code we write. We'll slip up and deploy to the wrong system. We'll cause discomfort to others.
 
 A better approach is the one I mentioned above: allowing ourselves the freedom to have places where it's OK to make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn what works and what doesn't work. We tend to remember the lessons of what doesn't work better than the ones that do work.
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+Mistakes help us shore up where we lack knowledge and help us see the gaps that we have. They also are a reminder to pause a bit and not get too wound up in the urgency of things. I know that my own mistakes tend to happen when I'm rushing to meet a deadline (whether real or self-imposed). My worst mistakes happen when I'm tired and rushed, where I'm practically flailing at the keyboard trying to get something, anything, working. Allowing myself to pause for a moment, reflect on what it is that I'm trying to do, and see the uncertainty in the moment allows me the moment I need to recalibrate and refocus in the moment.
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+## Journaling our mistakes
+
+There's value in not making the same mistakes twice. But it also brings some self-recrimination when we realize that we've made the same mistake again. 
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+One trick that I use more infrequently than I would like is journaling. Journaling about what happened and how we fixed it is one way to explain to someone else (ourselves) what happened. Explaining what happened allows us to become a teacher to ourselves and reinforces the learning process. By explaining what happened in words that someone else will need to understand we give ourselves the ability to articulate our own thoughts about what happened and codify them. 
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+This isn't about keeping a record for posterity so we can go back and find opportunities to beat ourselves up about the past. It's a way to teach ourselves and maximize the learning process. It's about giving ourselves the freedom to be the instructor to our future self so we can be more aware when a mistake is about to happen and understand how to correct it. It allows us to focus on the moment just long enough to understand what happened, what we did to correct it, and how we can best proceed from here. It also helps us to locate where our gaps are and the next actions that we'll need to take in order to shore up those gaps.
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+We'll talk more about journaling in later chapters but I fully recommend a journaling habit if for no other reason than it gives you a willing apprentice to teach, even if that apprentice is only yourself.