I’ve made a load of mistakes so far in life and I know I won’t be alone.
Simple work-related ones like turning up 2 hours late for an annual planning meeting, to “ground swallow me” ones like drinking too much at a Corporate event and falling off the back of my seat in front of my boss’ boss.
Those I’ve made with the ones I love the most are the worst. They end up clinging like a spider’s web long after I’ve been forgiven and the mistake forgotten.
Mistakes are a fact of life, sometimes as a result of conscious thought or action, but often as a result of ignorance or neglect. Sometimes those mistakes cause personal challenges that need to be overcome, but it’s truly awful when you see the adverse impact of an error on others that were relying on you in some way.
Depending on the scale, it can take minutes to months or more to recover from some mistakes, but research suggests mistakes increase the likelihood of a stronger growth mindset, so learning and moving on from them as quickly as you can is key.
Here are 5 approaches I’ve learned the hard way that might help.
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#1 Confront the issue
If there’s an elephant in the room, it’s going to be pretty tough not to look at it and carry on as if nothing has happened. After a while, it will also start to stink a bit too.
The sooner you acknowledge to yourself what you did, whether consciously or not, the sooner you will be able to move on. There is a power that comes from being honest with ourselves above all others. If you have opened all the dark cupboards in your mind where the mistakes live and can acknowledge each one, it makes it harder for someone else to use them against you.
You don’t need to take a “rip the band aid off” approach, but facing into the problem earlier is always better than letting a “wound” fester.
“Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.” ~Bruce Lee
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#2 Avoid wallowing
Confronting your emotions and understanding the real source of your pain is important in the process of healing. Your brain needs time and space to process what happened, adding the experience to the Library of Painful Things that should be avoided in the future.
However, wallowing in the muck that your brain will rake up is like sticking pins in your own effigy. All it does is cause more harm to no purpose. It can’t undo the mistake or the damage caused. It also limits the pace at which you can properly absorb what happened and put any lessons learned as a result into action.
More simply put, the longer you spend wallowing the more likely it is something similar will occur. Not good for anyone.
“You can’t make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake. It’s a choice.” Anonymous
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#3 Is it a fork or a bend?
Sometimes our brains work in mysterious ways. Our sub-conscious is like a ninja at placing us where our conscious mind would never be able, or want, to go. Have you ever wondered whether something happened to you or whether you placed yourself where the fickle finger of fate would find you?
While we’re racing around the world like Super Mario, dodging the obstacles and trying to stay upright, our sub-conscious mind is quietly and efficiently processing how best to keep us safe and on a path to reach our destination … even if we haven’t really acknowledged where or what that is to ourselves yet.
Significant mis-steps or errors in judgement are waypoints on our journey through life. They provide lessons to learn, inspire different perspectives and drive decision making on our direction of travel.
One of the most important considerations when confronting and moving beyond a mistake is whether you stay on the road you’re on or whether you will be better off taking the off-ramp to move your life along a different road with a new destination. One thing’s for sure, time travel is not yet a thing, so you can only move forward.
“If the things behind you are tripping you, you’re moving in the wrong direction” ~ Steve Maraboli
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Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
#4 Stack up the positives
This is not exactly a novel thought by any stretch. People a lot smarter and more accomplished than me have been broadcasting this form of mental resilience for a long time.
That said, when you’re lying awake in the metaphoric (or even literal) dark nights of winter, listening to the wind howling outside, it doesn’t take many of these thoughts to slow the galloping beat of your heart and ease passage into the Land of Nod.
- My family are healthy, I am healthy
- There’s a roof over our heads
- We have food in the fridge
- We have heat, light & running water
- There are people that love me
- I am doing everything I can
You will have your own list, but this one kept me going when I struggled to get beyond some wallowing a pig would be proud of.
“Two positives are always better than the 2 negatives that make a positive” ~ this one’s mine!
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#5 Lean into those who care
When the proverbial hits the fan, there’s a tendency to seek the shelter of our Fortress of Solitude, the shame acting like a moat, drawbridge and portcullis to protect us from any further slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Just like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, though, isolation and introspection after any trauma can lead to darker paths that some of us will struggle to return from on our own.
In the midst of a recent challenge of mine, a small number of people beyond my family reached out to offer solace and assistance. Some of them were what I believed to be simply friendly business associates and my initial response was a polite,
Truthfully, I was embarrassed and concerned about my professional reputation with them and our broader network. Luckily for me, they all saw through that and their gentle persistence wore me down. Being able to talk openly with people who care about you is like drawing the poison from an infected wound and, for me, a source of therapy I didn’t know I needed.
. . .
Regardless of the scale of mistakes that we make, what follows can be a chastening and humbling period. While individual circumstances may mean this is justified, life has to move on and so do we.
In summary
- Confront the issue … you did it, you need to own it and still be able to look yourself in the mirror
- Avoid wallowing … don’t roll around in the mess you made, you won’t get clean from doing that
- Decide is it a fork or a bend in the road … proceed as before with additional caution or head out in a new direction
- Stack up the positives … be thankful for what you do have and what you’re good at
- Lean into those who care … never push away the hands reaching out to pull you off the canvas and help dust you down
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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Unsplash
