I recently wrote an article about the importance of leaders allowing their employees the room to make mistakes in order to help them grow and improve. In that article I included the Six A’s to Properly Apologizing when we do make a mistake. As a follow up to that article, I think it is important to discuss what happens after we’ve made a mistake and the proper apology has been given. How do we move forward and put that mistake in our past? How do we keep that mistake from freezing us with fears of repeating failure? How do we keep that mistake from eroding our confidence?
Those are incredibly important questions because without the answers, we can easily get sucked into a never-ending state of dwelling on our past mistakes, reliving them in our head, and feeling like a constant failure. Our self-esteem and confidence can be sucked away, and it can make us hesitant to try again for fear of falling flat on our face and revisiting that feeling of failure. Having the answers on how to move past our mistakes in a positive, healthy way is critical to our future success.
The first thing that will help put a mistake in the past is to ensure that all six A’s of the proper apology were completed with whoever was impacted or damaged by the mistake that was made: Admit, Apologize, Acknowledge, Attest, Assure, and Abstain. There is a feeling of confidence that comes from having the courage to take ownership of our mistakes this way. It also shows others that we have fortitude and a desire to make things right, and it opens a door to allow us to regain any trust that may have been lost, helping to restore our own confidence in the process.
The second thing that will help is to let it go! If we have done the six A’s of the proper apology and we are committed to not repeating the mistake again, it is time to let it go! There is nothing more frustrating and discouraging then having someone else who constantly points out your past mistakes to you. It makes us angry and hurt, and frankly it makes us want to avoid entirely the people who do that to us. So why then are we so willing to be the very person who is the most up in our own face, pointing out the very loudest, and beating ourselves up the very most, for how stupid our past mistakes were? Especially when it is impossible to avoid our own self! No wonder our self-esteem and our confidence take such a beating when we make a mistake. We cannot move forward if we allow ourselves to stay stuck in quicksand – it ain’t gonna happen. We can’t keep bringing our mistakes up to others, and we sure as heck can’t keep bringing it up to ourselves by thinking about it, dwelling on it, and allowing the thoughts in our head to beat us down. What we need to be saying to ourselves instead is, “Yeah, everyone gets it. I made a mistake, but I did what I could to fix it. Now it is time to let go and move on!”
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That lesson is taught best in the Disney movie “The Lion King.” There is a point in the movie when the young lion Simba is feeling sorry for himself for his past mistakes. The wise baboon Rafiki takes a stick and hits Simba on the back of the head. Simba yells, “Geez, what was that for” and Rafiki replies, “It doesn't matter, it's in the past.” Simba says, “Yeah, but it still hurts.” Rafiki then says “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it.” Rafiki then swings the stick again to hit Simba on the head and Simba ducks down in time to avoid the stick. Rafiki says, “You see.” I love that example! It’s the perfect reminder that this principle should not be a difficult one for us to grasp. Yes, it hurts to mess up, but it’s in the past, so learn from it and move on.
There is no question that making mistakes is a necessary part of our growing process, but I do believe there is a way we can still learn and grow without making quite so many mistakes and in a way that can be far less painful. The way to do that is to decide now what ideals you are going to stand for in your life and then go into each day determined to stand by those, no matter what comes your way. It is amazing how much uncertainty disappears from our life when we already know in advance what we want to stand for. Decisions become easier, temptations become less, and our confidence grows stronger, all of which allow us to put our mistakes in our past and move forward far more quickly, far more confidently and far more successfully. And when you do make your next mistake, which all of us most certainly will - own it, fix it, and for heaven’s sake when that stick comes swinging toward the back of your head, hopefully you have learned enough to duck!
