I’ve made some mistakes at work recently. It’s to be expected in a new job, but it still stings. As I looked back at how I made those mistakes I realized that there are two lessons here. The first is understanding what led to making the mistakes. The second – and likely more important lesson – is understanding how we respond to them.
It’s important to look back at what happened that led to a mistake . To understand what was missed, where things went wrong, and to adjust processes so mistakes aren’t repeated. This is all good and important stuff. Mistakes can actually make you better at your job if you seek to understand them in 360. This is a fairly easy process of reviewing, considering, and adjusting. Pay more attention to x next time. See a different result.
The harder deconstruction isn’t focused on the mistake itself, but the personal response to it. What got me today was how I responded to my mistake. I started to beat myself up a little bit. Told myself it couldn’t happen again. That I should know better. It was also embarrassing that multiple people knew about my mistake. I felt crummy.
As I needed to understand how I made the mistake, I also needed to break down why I was talking to myself that way. It wasn’t helping to rake myself over the coals so I try to identify what contributed to the negative self talk in the first place. And my objective was to deconstruct my response so I could learn something and then move beyond it.
Here are a few thoughts:
- High expectations – It’s ok to have high expectations but they need to be met with an understanding of where you are right now. Beginners make mistakes. You fall. You get up. So it’s important to align what I expect of myself with the amount of time and experience I have. Perfection is an unfair target.
- Negative self talk – It seems so obvious, but we all do it, and it just makes a mistake worse. What purpose does telling myself I suck serve? Perhaps I think I deserve to feel bad for making a mistake. But why? Maybe I’ve learned that mistakes aren’t acceptable. Ok, so let’s change that. Shift the focus from “I suck” to “make room for being imperfect.”
- Be kind to yourself – It’s important to go easy on yourself when you make a mistake. Is there a way to acknowledge what you did wrong and still feel good about yourself and your work? Could you maybe see a mistake as part of growth and therefore you’re moving in the right direction?
- Thinking a mistake is always bad – It’s not. A mistake is a chance to grow. To reflect. To refine. Without these three things we stay the same. And stagnancy doesn’t lead to expertise or enjoyment or longevity.
Those are just a few that came to mind. Curious if you have any thoughts about how you respond to mistakes? And one last reminder that it’s ok. We all make mistakes. It’s how we respond to them that matters most.
