I’ve made a huge mistake
I’ve made a huge mistake.
Well, thats not technically correct. It was actually pretty minor, but I just like to quote Arrested Development whenever possible.
But I spent most of last night agonizing over it. Worrying about it, feeling bad about it. I even lost a bit of sleep over it, which is rare for me. There isn’t a lot that will keep me from sleeping. Except for not being on a bed. That will do it.
It got me thinking about mistakes in general though, and how we treat ourselves when we make a mistake. I know a lot of people, myself included, who will beat themselves up over a mistake and kick themselves for it. I can still recount, in agonizing detail, many missteps I’ve had over the years.
But kicking yourself is illogical. Maybe you do it because you feel you deserve it, or as a way to keep people from doing it to you themselves or to show remorse. In the end though it doesn’t help you, it only hurts and hinders you, by making you dwell on things. It may even keep you from taking risks in the future.
Here’s what I think we should do when we make a mistake.
1. Rectify the mistake. Do what you can to make it right, be that apologizing or correcting something.
2. Look at what happened and what you can do to prevent it in the future.
3. Get the frak over it.
Step 3 is perhaps the most important. If you look back at a lot of mistakes, often it wasn’t really a mistake. You made the best judgment off the information available, and it was wrong, but looking back, you wouldn’t have handled anything differently. Step 2 can often just mean saying “well, now I know that.” And as for Step 1, that much is pretty well obvious. The mistake can either be corrected, or it can’t. You will be forgiven, or you won’t. A lot of that is quite fully out of your hands.
This is why Step 3 is so critical and it’s the one I have the most trouble with. If you don’t get over it, let yourself say “I made a mistake, I’m not perfect,” then it can hold you back.
I think it’s also important to realize that if you’re not making mistakes, odds are you aren’t pushing yourself much at all. And not doing that may be the biggest mistake of all.
