For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about mistakes at work, including how we make them, how we respond, and what people remember. This past weekend gave me a different lens through which to consider mistakes.

The weekend didn’t have the look or feel of work.There were no slides, key points, or a million details to prepare. Other presenters handled those and I just showed up.

On Saturday, I attended the National Speakers Association DC Metro chapter. Dr. Genie Snyder conducted a program on navigating intersections — those moments when two things collide and you don’t yet see the relationship between them. She also spoke about “leveraging your genius,” which is how our strengths often show up in ways we don’t immediately recognize or fully connect.

All of us know the feeling of expending effort, time, and perhaps even expense, yet things don’t line up neatly. We don’t see how the experience will result in the end goal. Sometimes, at least in our heads, we label those events as a waste of time, or possibly even a mistake.

The next day I attended a book signing for a brilliant writer and speaker I had the privilege of mentoring – Elisa Everts. Listening to Elisa speak about her book, I Should Wake Before I Die, was incredibly moving. She spoke about the difficult seasons we all experience. Periods of grief. Of questioning. Some of them quick, and others relentlessly long. She spoke of doing hard, exhausting emotional work and the often invisible work of therapy and self-reflection. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t show up on our résumés, LinkedIn profiles, or website, but changes everything about how we show up.

Elisa didn’t frame those experiences as mistakes or wastes of time, yet they held many of the same elements including uncertainty, discomfort, and perhaps times when things didn’t go as planned. Sometimes they include embarrassment, shame, and occasionally even blame.

And yet, Elisa learned to keep going. Not everything that feels off track is a mistake to fix. Sometimes you’re in the middle of something that hasn’t connected yet.

As leaders and as individuals we’re often quick to label, correct, move on.

But what if some of our most important growth comes from staying in the moment a little longer? Feeling the uncertainty, the discomfort, and often even the anguish.

What if we went from asking ourselves, “What went wrong?” to “How is this shaping me?”

So as I continue to ponder and write this series on mistakes, I’m holding a slightly different question. Not just, “How do we respond when something goes wrong?” which is certainly important, but “What is the learning for me, as a person, in this moment?”