An important step in any journey is to make a few mistakes along the way. Hitting those brick walls is an experience in refinement. Sometimes you may make mistakes that will amaze you. Heck, at the last Regional Qualifier I went to, I practically gave my opponent the game during the last round of the tournament.

Why? Well . . . I guess I wasn’t paying attention to my opponent’s hand during my resolution of Trap Dustshoot. I saw he had Machine Duplication, Brain Control, and Card Trooper. I send back Card Trooper and rightfully so: I did not have a monster. My opponent’s only in-hand monster was Cyber Dragon. On my next turn, I drew. All I had left was Spell Shield Type-8 face down. The card I drew was Card Trooper.

So what did I do next? My hand was really bad, so I decided to give my deck a jumpstart by using Card Trooper’s effect. I hit a good top three cards. One problem though: my opponent had Brain Control and Machine Duplication.

Oops . . .

While I had Spell Shield Type-8 face down, my opponent could draw something like Raiza the Storm Monarch or Mobius the Frost Monarch to eliminate it, and easily win with Cyber Dragon. Lo and behold! He drew a Raiza, then special summoned Cyber Dragon and tributed it off for Raiza, targeting the face-down Spell Shield. He played Brain Control on my Card Trooper next, then used Machine Duplication to deal a grand total of exactly 8000 damage.

Brutal, huh? The game was over on turn 3. I just gave the game to him on a silver platter. I was on a roll all day: 6-1 and on the bubble for a Top 8 finish. This kind of thing happens to everyone. It is possible to make obvious mistakes, and errors of judgment do occur. It’s inevitable. I said to myself, “You saw his hand, how could you have missed that?”

Things like that decide whether you make Top 8 or not. The important lesson to learn is: weigh your decisions quickly, yet more effectively.

What Makes Mistakes So Useful?

Massive errors in judgment, like what I described above, are critical points in any situation. The great thing about mistakes is that they are extremely helpful. They serve as beacons to steer you in the right direction and keep you on the path to your goal.

I heard this saying once: “Moments of frustration are situations where you can learn a valuable lesson.” In my opinion, failing to look for the lesson in every difficulty and adversity is a formula for going nowhere. Figure out what you did wrong and what you can learn from it. Frustration can teach you the secrets of your potential and abilities. You just have to be patient and learn to discern.

I won’t lie to you: mistakes are painful. They hurt. That’s why we avoid them. You’ll find that a lot of players treat mistakes like they are negative experiences, but that depends on how you look at it. I find it more useful to learn from mistakes than to complain about them. When you make mistakes during the tournament, you should “let go” of them and keep going. Don’t waste your time beating yourself up over it.

The juncture you arrive at when you make a mistake gives you two choices: (1) you quit and find a way to excuse the fact that you made a mistake or lost; or (2) you accept that you made a mistake and lost, then learn from it and move on. The choice you make here reveals a lot about you.

Excuses and How They Hurt You

At this juncture you’ll reveal a lot about yourself. The automatic choice you make will tell you about how you handle adversity. When you make a mistake, it’s easy to blame it on someone or something else. It’s almost automatic. Not taking the blame or accepting responsibility is easy. When you travel to different tournaments and play, you’ll hear it all the time:

“My opponent just got lucky, it’s not fair.”

“I’m so much better than him as a player. Why is he winning and I’m not?”

“He top-decked such-and-such card . . .”

“This game makes it easy for bad players to win.”

“This format makes it easy for bad players to win.”

“Everybody is playing the same deck.”

“My deck can’t win against the cookie-cutter decks.”

I’ve heard ’em all. The new ones you hear these days are just variations of these. I’ll tell you a secret: I’ve used them all too. Seriously. Sometimes it’s good to be honest with yourself. How many of these excuses have you heard? Here’s a tougher question: how many of these have you used? Excuses don’t hurt you right away. It’s like having poor eating habits. You don’t get overweight in one day, but gradually over time. When you make a mistake or when your mistake results in a loss, it’s easy to spit out any one of the above excuses. It’s so easy it’s insidious.

I’ve studied this question for a long time: why is it easier to shift blame away from oneself? Because we have a natural tendency to avoid pain. Taking the blame is painful. Admitting mistakes is painful. But the more often you shift the blame away from yourself, the more it will start affecting you. It becomes a habit. Nothing’s more annoying than someone who likes to make excuses for everything. Before you know it, you’ll start doing it on reflex. You lose to an unfair hand and you foist off an excuse to your friends. They’ll listen, and justify you. It happens every time. I call the friend’s reply “those famous words”: “Yeah, you’re right. That sucks.”

If you can break that habit—if you can coldly and logically look at the situation, and see what you did wrong—then what was once an excuse for complaining becomes an opportunity to improve as a player, and make sure the “unlucky break” or “unfair hand” never hits you again.

Some Final Thoughts

Mistakes are valuable lessons in disguise. Excuses are the fastest way to become a worse player. It’s best to ask yourself the tough questions:

“Why am I losing so often?”

“Why do I make so many mistakes?”

“Why can’t I ever Top 8 at a Regional Qualifier?”

“Why can’t I ever Top 8 at a Shonen Jump Championship?”

“Why won’t my deck work?”

All the tough questions have simple answers. You almost always know the answer right away. It’s never the one you want it to be. Simple answers, tough questions. Often, the simple answers are the ones that allow you to progress much faster on your path to being a better duelist.

Simple does not mean easy. Simple and easy do not have the same definition in the dictionary.

“Simple” is defined as: not complicated.

“Easy” is defined as: not hard, not much effort required.

They’re very different things. Think about it.

Thank you for reading! Talk to you next week.

—Bryan Camareno