If (and when) you make a mistake – do you immediately try to fix it? Or do you sit with it, even for a little while, and give it the weight or acknowledgment it deserves?
It can be hard – excruciating even – to do the latter. I think it’s a very normal, very human response to try and make things better, quickly. But if we don’t give our mistakes enough breathing room, we are too often reacting to them, instead of acting on them. It’s in these moments that we can actually make things worse, and then – the whole process starts over again. The cliché – those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them – exists because it’s the truth. How often have you said to yourself, ‘I’m never going to do this again’. Now, how often have you said, ‘I can’t believe I did this again!’ If you’re like me, many!
Maybe the numbers are fairly even? Or Lopsided? My suggestion to you is: sit with your mistakes – and lean into that discomfort that makes you want to react instead of act. Allow yourself the time to properly identify what you actually need to make things better. How do you offer yourself self-compassion? Is it an action? Is it an email? Is it picking up the phone? Or astonishingly – is it nothing at all?
Sometimes, giving mistakes a solid beat helps us realize that it’s not, in fact, the end of the world. What do you do when confronted by mistakes? What would happen if you reframed it to be a ‘miss-take’? Would your perspective change? Would you do anything different?
Has this changed over the course of your career? What works for you and why?
