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I did not want to make past mistakes, which was to...
I did not want to make past mistakes as to...

I just want to make a sentence that says that somebody did not want to repeat past mistakes and that explains what those mistakes are.

None of those above phrases really seems to appear on COCA. I am also considering anything in a similar/appropriate fashion.

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I do not want to repeat my past mistake of X

I do not want to repeat any of these past mistakes, X, Y, and Z

I do want to repeat my past mistakes, especially not X, Y, and Z

There are many possibilities with slightly different meanings. What do you really want to say?

EDIT:

If the mistakes cannot be listed as nouns, you might be able to use relatively brief participial phrases in the confines of a single sentence.

I do not want to repeat my past mistakes of underplaying economic disruption and over-emphasizing technical hurdles.

This approach works if the mistakes can be expressed in short phrases. Otherwise, you can use multiple sentences.

I shall not repeat my mistake of stressing the benefits that such a technology provides to the general public in the long term while underplaying the economic costs that new technologies frequently impose on unskilled labor in both the short and long term. Nor shall I err again in over-estimating the delays that purely technical hurdles may impose on adoption of a new technology.

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  • Thank you. I was thinking the first one, but I was wondering because I cannot seem to find an example in COCA for usage of "past mistake of" so I was assuming there may be a better way to put it. Also how can I use it if X, Y, Z are phrases(S+V), rather than nouns?
    – able20
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 18:53
  • I am sorry, this is not a very clear question
    – able20
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 19:08
  • I shall answer with an edit because a comment is too constraining.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 19:12
  • Thank you so much!
    – able20
    Commented Jan 3, 2020 at 19:33

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