Made a mistake at work? Here’s how to move on
Words by: Dawn Baxter
You did something wrong (unintentionally I may add), but now you feel terrible. The feeling eats away at you and even worse, it makes you feel like a terrible person.
Making mistakes is part of human nature, but although it is more common than we may realise (or certainly hear about from others), it never feels any easier. Nobody likes to fail and although some may say we need to embrace failure and look at it as an opportunity to grow. It can be hard to look on the bright side when you’re really feeling down in the dumps about a pretty big faux par, but punishing yourself isn’t going to fix anything!
So, if you’ve made a mistake at work, how can we get over it, learn and then just move on?
How does making a mistake affect our emotional state?
When we make a mistake we experience lots of emotions. Embarrassment, fear and shame can all be amplified if the mistake is public or ‘out there’ for everyone to see. And despite mistakes being common and something every single human being has done from time to time, yes even Mother Teresa, we don’t handle them well in a collective sense.
Our culture has us believing that high-performing, high-achieving types do not ever, not even once, not even a little bit make mistakes. Which is a massive mistake in itself!
We hold ourselves up to an unattainable marker of achievement, completely abandon all that makes us human, and only accept utter perfection.
This in turn is utter rubbish and let’s be honest, only sets you up for failure. The feelings we get when we feel ‘caught out’ come predominantly from our childhood, was there any room for mistakes for you growing up?
Past traumas can have a profound effect on the mistakes of today making us feel like a failure and triggering our ‘not good enough’ responses when in fact mistakes are quite frankly as common as breathing.
Recognising that mistakes are not always a bad thing
Mistakes are only a bad thing if you choose not to do anything with them right? Let’s take an example, something many people do in day-to-day office jobs is replying to client emails.
Typos will happen, so as a precaution you may choose to proofread more often or to only type consciously when you are undistracted going forward for instance.
Small mistakes and ‘human errors’ are often unavoidable. We live busy lives, often multitasking and juggling this thing called life! And occasionally something has got to give. Hindsight is great for figuring out how things could be better but the truth is we often do not know we are making a mistake until after we have made it!
So the theory that all mistakes can be avoided is flawed! The learning that comes from mistakes is something that cannot be substituted by anything else and it is valuable. Experiences shape our world, how many times do you buy stilettoes even though you know they can break an ankle or two?
Although we would all like to gain experience and learnings the way Neo did in the matrix with a fancy microchip direct to the brain, unfortunately, we cannot. We have to live a little and fall down a little but then we have to triumph and make mistakes in equal measure. Some of the most valuable lessons life ever taught me have come from mistakes.
What to avoid when you’ve made a mistake
Hopefully, by now you’ve realised that mistakes are totally normal, but there are a few golden rules to abide by if you have accidentally slipped up.
Firstly, do not try to cover a mistake up. You will panic and do a messy job at best probably making the mistake even worse! Secondly, do not shift the blame and try to pin the mistake on someone else, it’s unethical and the universe is passing notes to Karma! Well maybe not, but it’s still very uncool.
The wrong way to handle a mistake is to pretend it didn’t happen, ignore the circumstances, deny it or pin it on someone else to take the blame. You have to own it.
Be honest, own up, learn from it, evaluate it, and then share the findings so you can help others swerve from making the same mistakes you have. It is a beautiful thing to be able to truly evaluate your situation in a way that helps to guide you and those around you forward.
Is honestly always the best policy?
Yes, 100%, absolutely. Always be honest. Tell everyone who may be affected by the mistake and let them know what you are going to do to correct it or minimise impact, and most importantly what you have learnt from it going forward.
Always ask for support if you feel you need it. If there is a good reason that the mistake happened, the likelihood is that it can be amended to ensure it is not repeated, so always shout up.
Sharing the mistake to newer team members so they can avoid it is not only kind to those around you but it may also make you feel better within yourself as you are releasing and accepting your actions.
And then finally, do you know what, let it go and move on. Mistakes are part of life like tripping on the stairs or wearing your top inside out, it’s not a big deal 99% of the time.
For your own self-worth and respect don’t take it and turn it into your own personal torture chamber. Move on.
Learning will always be the best outcome from a mistake
After you have made a mistake, evaluate the situation as impartially as humanly possible to see what occurred to make this mistake a reality. It is often easy to see where we went wrong or at what point we could have changed the outcome. However, once you have figured this out be transparent about it. Let others know your findings so that the mistake isn’t repeated and that everyone can benefit from it.
Of course, you can minimise mistakes with simple things such as maintaining the right energy and balance to be truly focused, asking for help if you are struggling, communicating needs for support or training or generally having others guide you. But the best thing you can do to learn from your mistake is to acknowledge, document and then let the mistake go - torturing yourself with shame will only lead to a lack of focus and potentially more mistakes going forward, something we’d all like to try and avoid!
Dawn Baxter is the founder of Beyond the Dawn Digital, digital marketing expert and certified positive psychology coach