Think back to the last time when you made a mistake at work. Regardless of whether it was a minor one, such as spilling some coffee on a document moments before you were to present it, you would have most probably felt a surge of panic and later had the inconvenience of putting things right.
Nobody is immune to committing mistakes. We are human after all!
“To err is human.”
Have you ever found yourself saying, “I will never repeat this mistake,” only to end up doing exactly the same thing a short time later? If yes, you are not alone. It is possible that we all must have repeated some of our mistakes at one time or another.
However, repeating the same mistakes over and over can be costly in more than one way. Maybe your team has lost confidence and faith in you in light of the fact that your behavior doesn’t coordinate with your words. Or maybe your mistakes have cost you or another person a lot of money.
The good and positive news is you can find out ways to learn from your mistakes. Then, rather than repeating them, you will acquire valuable wisdom that will help you in the future.
Look at these ways to learn from your mistakes:
#1 Confess your mistakes
Often, leaders say things like “I am sorry you felt that way,” or “It is unfortunate it did not work out.” At the same time, there could also be people who would look to blame others for their mistakes, or they try to limit their apparent responsibility in it. This kind of behavior is not helpful to anyone.
Acknowledging your mistakes does not need to be a big experience – you can simply admit your faults and move on.
Some people may fear giving off an impression of being weak and powerless. However, not admitting your mistakes makes you look worse and can probably lead to a loss of respect from others. Admitting your mistakes will help you gain that respect from the people around you.
Accept and acknowledge your responsibility in any helpless outcome – whether it was totally your flaw or you simply contributed to it. Certainly, this can be awkward, yet until you are prepared to admit that you messed up, you are not prepared to bring about a change and improve.
#2 Have compassion for yourself
Try not to beat yourself up over committing a mistake. Maybe, show yourself some sympathy, which will help keeping you motivated to continue to move toward your goal. In fact, research has discovered that having empathetic acknowledgement of your own mistakes can boost your determination to achieve your goals.
The facts confirm that laying on the couch the whole day watching television will not help you finish that huge work project. However, contemplating over it won’t help either. Take the chance to let go off your helpless decision, offer yourself sympathy, and think about what made you waste your day and the sensible impact it will have on your progress. What was the neglected need that drove you to lie around the entire day? Did you not get enough sleep or me time? How might you deal with yourself better in the future to prevent this? Having a touch of sympathy will help you make the best out of a situation and use it to benefit you later on.
#3 Ask the toughest questions to yourself
While you don’t want to harp on your mistakes, reflecting on these mistakes can be useful and productive. Ask yourself a couple of tough questions:
Ø What turned out badly?
Ø What was I really trying to do?
Ø How could I improve better next time?
Ø What did I learn from this?
Write down your thoughts and responses in order to gain clarity on the circumstances. Writing down and seeing your answers to these questions on paper can enable you to think more logically regarding an irrational or emotional experience. Doing this will allow you to see on paper the things that you need to do in the future and the positive lessons that you are leaving with. This will likewise assist you with understanding your mistake, which is a basic component of being able to learn from it. There is nothing worse than trying to fix a mistake that you don’t comprehend, and you are likely to only make things worse.
#4 Change your mindset
Moving away from an improving attitude and into an expansion attitude is a point that people normally miss. When you commit a mistake, quit seeing your ultimate accomplishment as perfecting one skill and embrace a bigger perspective of carrying on with a satisfying life by growing and expanding your entire knowledge.
To do this, take a look at your mistakes through a viewpoint that sees the bigger vision that you have for your life. This will help you view your mistakes and errors in a more realistic and sensible extent which is probably not such a big deal as you initially believed. This will allow you to let go off the misfortune and losses, reaffirm your vision and continue moving forward.
#5 Create a plan
Beating yourself for your mistakes will not help you in your life. Invest the main part of your time and energy contemplating about how to improve later on in the future. Be as detailed as possible, yet you need to remain adaptable while you are executing the plan.
Make a plan that will help you to be careful of not making the same mistake again. Making a plan for yourself may involve finding a responsible partner or using an application to follow your habits but no matter what, it must be a successful way to make yourself dependable and responsible.
For example, if you learned that a mistake occurred due to your forgetfulness, then keeping a habit tracker will help that will not sabotage your habits or way of doing things. If you feel that the mistake happened due to a misunderstanding in team communication, you may plan to improve your communication skills in this quarter. Furthermore, remember that what works for one individual probably won’t work with another individual. While one might be motivated by an application, another may think that it’s simple to keep that same app in their phone’s background and seldom open it.
Sometimes, mistakes are not only one major blunder. Instead, they are a series of little decisions that lead to failure and disappointment. So, focus on your mistakes, regardless of how enormous or how little they might appear.
While you can’t change the mistakes that you have made, you can pick and choose how you will react to them. It is important to recognize that mistakes are unavoidable and living by experimentation is essential for our natural evolution. Personal growth will begin as soon as you identify and confess your own mistake and put forth proper efforts to reveal what turned out badly. This will also keep you on check, hold you accountable and stay committed for your personal development in the long run. Learning from your mistakes is a skill that will keep you have a happy life, successful career and a positive personality that bounces with lesser hiccups!
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