How to stop making the same mistakes twice

How do we stop making the same mistakes twice?I used to think that the answer was simple, that all it takes is to have more discipline and try harder.But that didn’t work.Then I came across Schopenhauer, and he said something that changed how I see things.He said that human beings cannot be fully rational.To a great extent, we are driven by an intangible force pushing us toward short-term pleasure and comfort.Schopenhauer called this force “the Will” and Sigmund Freud called it “instincts.”And when I look at my own life, it’s obvious that they are at play.Schopenhauer discovered that we don’t repeat mistakes because we forget that they are mistakes.We repeat them because the same drive shows up at the critical moment… and we follow it.That’s why we know that some things are bad for us, such as procrastination, but we still do them anyway.According to Schopenhauer, it’s not a knowledge problem.It’s a pattern problem.Schopenhauer’s point was not that we are powerless.It’s that we are influenced far more than we like to admit.The Will or the instincts do not ask for permission—they just push.And most of the time, we confuse that push with our conscious decisions.But here’s where it gets interesting.According to Schopenhauer, the solution is not to fight harder against ourselves.The solution is to recognize the pattern before it fully takes over.Once we notice that “this is that same impulse again,” something shifts.The urge doesn’t disappear, but it weakens.Because now we are feeling it and observing it.In that moment of awareness, that’s where we actually get a choice.That moment creates enough space to avoid repeating the same mistakes.Thus, our goal should not be “we are never going to fail again.”But to recognize the pattern early enough so that we can interrupt it.https://johnvespasian.com/how-we-stop-making-the-same-mistakes-twice/