It's Time We Accept That Mistakes Are One of the Best Ways to Learn
This isn't just true for bookkeeping. It applies to everything — our personal lives, our physical, mental, and emotional growth. If you're new here, welcome! I'm Kyle Nelson Omac, and I have four years of experience as a VA (Virtual Assistant) Bookkeeper. One of the biggest factors that shaped me into someone efficient, effective, and skilled in my craft? Accepting that making mistakes is simply part of the process — part of who I am. It became my love language for learning.
How It All Started: My Corporate Accounts Payable Days
I still remember when I was working corporate in Davao City as an Accounts Payable specialist. I was trained by a US Accountant since it was a BPO setup — night shift, working for a US logistics company that outsourced their back office to Davao City. I was placed in Accounts Payable.
My point of contact was a US-based Accountant — an AP Supervisor or AP Team Lead at the company. And here's the catch: I was the only person hired for that specific Logistics department. If you're not familiar, Logistics has many branches — Brokerage, Drayage, LTL, and more. Transportation and Logistics is a massive field.
I was placed in the Drayage Department, hired to replace someone who had resigned. Since I was working solo with zero backup and nobody around who actually knew the process, my US point of contact had to personally train me online.
Learning Through Shadowing — No Manual, Just Observation
She didn't walk me through company background, terminology, or how Drayage worked in theory. Instead, we jumped straight into shadowing. She showed me the software, the process, and what to do (and what not to do) — all while she worked live, screen-shared, in real time.
Day 1: Pure observation. I watched her click, type, rename files, and organize folders — literally just absorbing everything she did.
Day 2: Hands-on practice, little by little. She gave me simple vendor/carrier accounts to process — ones that didn't require too many technicalities.
We even recorded our shadowing sessions so I'd have something to refer back to, since it was impossible to remember everything from just one sitting.
When Things Got Complicated — And I Started Making Mistakes
The easy vendors were smooth sailing. No mistakes there — those were no-brainers. But eventually, the workload got more complex, and I started to feel overwhelmed. I couldn't quite retain everything from a single shadowing session.
So I got honest with my trainer. I told her: "The way I learn is by actually experiencing it. I don't limit myself from making mistakes — because that's when I learn the most."
Her response? "That makes sense. We're the same."
She then let me share my screen instead — flipping the dynamic so she shadowed me. She didn't interrupt or correct me mid-task. She let me work through it, only stepping in with comments and corrections at the end.
The Power of a Safe Space to Fail
That's when I realized how effective this approach was. Being allowed to navigate the work myself — without fear of making a mistake — was a huge advantage. I knew that before I submitted anything, someone would catch and correct any errors. That safety net made all the difference.
Looking back, I now understand the massive impact of letting yourself make mistakes, especially when you're just starting out. Every mistake I made during that training never happened again. Those were the lessons I understood — and remembered — the most.
I'd always ask myself afterward: "Why did I make this mistake?" Maybe I missed a step, or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Pinpointing the why meant that specific mistake would never repeat itself. To this day, years after leaving that job, I still remember those lessons clearly.
I started treating mistakes as signals — a way of training my brain to recognize: "This is where I need to be careful. This is the red flag for this specific situation." And the more mistakes I absorbed and learned from, the more I became an expert in my field.
Applying This Philosophy When I Trained My Own Replacement
Before I resigned from that job, I trained my replacement and rendered a full month to help the company find someone new. When she came in, I applied the same teaching philosophy: give people room to make mistakes.
You can perfect every step, create a detailed SOP, explain the entire company profile and business model — but if the person you're training never actually does the work themselves, mistakes will still happen. That's just the nature of learning.
Why Mistakes Are Pure Gold
Here's my honest take: there's no greater wisdom than what you earn from your own mistakes. That knowledge sticks with you because you lived through the failure. That's where you become effective — where you understand the context behind why you made that mistake, why it shouldn't happen again, and how serious the consequences could've been.
That's also where accountability and carefulness are born. And I'm not just talking about work — this applies to the entire scope of our lives.
What If Fear of Mistakes Is What's Holding You Back?
I genuinely love failure. My mistakes are my love language. Having room for error is my source of truth — because once I make a mistake, I understand exactly how and why it happened, which means it almost never repeats itself.
Even back in school, I never held myself back from making mistakes. Honestly, I didn't "study" for exams in the traditional sense — I learned more from class discussions, forums, and real moments of learning. I let myself get things wrong on exams because I could review them the same day and immediately understand where I went wrong. I wasn't chasing high grades — I just wanted to pass, learn, and genuinely enjoy being a student.
Final Thoughts: Don't Fear Mistakes — Get Excited By Them
Every lesson behind my mistakes is precious. It's the reason I can teach, speak, and express myself confidently today — all shaped by the mistakes I made throughout my personal and professional life.
That said, mistakes shouldn't be repeated carelessly. Learn the lesson, take accountability, and move forward — especially when your decisions affect other people. It's okay to make mistakes because you learn from them. But repeating the same mistake over and over? That's where you lose accountability and responsibility.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Be excited by them — because that's where the gold is.