How to own your mistakes and get past them

 

Image Credit | Brett Jordan | Pexels

I wish that I could write without mistakes, work without mistakes or navigate my relationships without mistakes. This desire to be perfect, of course, is not possible. All of us, no matter how well practiced or how competent will make mistakes. It's important to both understand that and to be able to get past it.

There are generally two ways that you can react when you've made a mistake.  You can either recognize the mistake and a way to move forward or you can deny your mistake hoping it will go unnoticed. 

Step 1: Admit Your Mistakes 

The first step in moving forward from a mistake is admitting that you've made a mistake.  Sometimes it might feel tough to admit a mistake like you're admitting that you've failed at something. That doesn't mean that you are a failure. It means like the biggest sports stars, the greatest scientists, and best writers you made a 1-time mistake. You do not have to let that mistake define you, but you do have to admit that it happened.  Once you've accepted that a mistake happened you can learn from it. 

Step 2: Learn From Your Mistakes

Never let a good mistake go to waste! Of course not making a mistake is better, but if you're anything like me you learn more from the things you've done wrong than the things you've done well.  For that reason, it's important to study what went wrong and what you can learn from it. What was the goal and what was the outcome? Use that information to plan for how you would do things differently next time. 

Step 3: Own Your Mistakes

Now you've got to own your mistake. This is the part that can be the hardest for many people. You can admit a mistake and learn from it privately. Admitting your mistake to your boss, family, or friends or whoever else is a stakeholder in the situation can be much harder. It is an important step to being able to move forward. Admitting your mistake and talking through it with your relationship or boss can help you let go of it emotionally and move forward without the fear of being found out later. This allows the stress to melt away and you to get back to focusing on what you do best. 

Step 4: Work Your Plan

You've admitted your mistake to both yourself and others and you've made a plan for how to do things differently next time. Great job! The last step is to put your plan into action. As the old saying goes, "Plan your work and work your plan".  You now must be on the lookout for the same situation and when you encounter it remind yourself of the plan you made and put it into action. It may not be perfect the first time, but it is likely to be mushy better than it was in the past. Like any plan, continue to gauge the outcomes and make adjustments so that you get better and better.

Making mistakes is hard. Admitting them and getting better is harder, but once you've gotten the process down, you'll not only feel better about yourself, but you'll accelerate your performance. Have you ever made a mistake and tried to hide it or deny it? Or, have you ever made a mistake and owned it as we talked about above? I want to hear about it!  Post below or contact me!