Making mistakes is a part of the human condition. How you choose to deal with it determines whether you will eventually become a charismatic leader or a bitter old man.
Most people associate a variety of negative emotions with making mistakes. They feel stupid. Embarrassed. That their pride has somehow been wounded. Frustrated. Angry. Sad. But is all of it really necessary?
To be sure, when I make a mistake, I feel pain. Of course I do. You would have to be some kind of jellyfish or neanderthal not to feel anything. But I no longer treat them as cracks in my utopian bubble that need immediate repair. I remind myself that there is no such thing as perfection. I am a work in progress. I am never complete. Therefore, I am grateful for my mistakes because they illuminate the path when I am lost. They guide my ship away from turbulent waters and destructive storms. When I approach the same situation again, even if I repeat my mistake, I am still grateful because I know that the pain will make my reflexes faster, like the lightning quick speed at which your hand has learned to withdraw from a hot object. The pain of your mistakes is what shapes you as a man, and the greater the pain, the greater the potential for your brain to learn.
Why do I say potential? Well, if you do not study them, mistakes actually serve no purpose at all. If you fail to recognize the lesson contained within the attendant pain, you will just lament your fate and avoid that situation altogether in the future.
The pain of having to throw away spoiled food familiarizes you with how to properly store different foods and when to eat them. The pain of getting caught in traffic tunes you in to how you might change your commuting habits. The pain of forgetting your personal belongings at a bar or a restaurant shows you what rituals you need to establish to ensure that you remember to bring everything with you the next time.
When most people make moderately painful mistakes like these, they generally learn their lesson. But when the pain is immense, they have a tendency to hide from their pain rather than look it in the eye and glean its wisdom. They lose perspective. But if they could just picture the journey ahead of them, they would see that their pain, in fact, is meant to teach them something important. Sometimes the lesson may not be obvious, but if you look for it, you will certainly find it. The pain of feeling overwhelmed is showing you that you need to learn new ways to master yourself. The pain of being overlooked by your peers or your employer is telling you that you need to somehow stand out from the crowd. And the pain of a canceled date may not teach you how to get the girl necessarily, but it will teach you to have a plan B and perhaps meet a different girl instead of just sitting home alone, feeling like an unattractive reject. If you commit to a lifetime of self-betterment, the pain of your mistakes will make you stronger, wiser, and more resilient. Exceptional men do not become exceptional by avoiding errancies, but rather because they have willingly made as many mistakes as it takes to develop the reflexes, the insight, and the courage to get to the top.
Choose to Take the Journey 
An example of synchronicity at its best, I had just posted a comment about this subject on another post before I came across your blog post.
All the successful people (excluding the ones who inherited success) got there through trial and error. They are fast learners so make few repetitions of their errors. All of them will have more mistakes on their path than successes. They are wise because they learn more through error than from getting it right.