How to Handle Mistakes

Mistakes are an unavoidable part of life. Even the most skilled people make mistakes, because there are so many factors beyond our knowledge and control that impact our success. This is true especially when we're pushing the boundaries of knowledge or potential. On the frontier of what we can know or do, there are no wagon tracks to follow, no familiar landmarks, no mile markers, no road maps to guide us. We're moving forward without the benefit of anyone else's hindsight. Missteps will happen. Part of taking command of our lives is managing those missteps when they do happen.

If you got some results you didn't want, the world is telling you at least one of two things: you were unlucky, or your ideas about how things work were wrong.

If you were unlucky, trying again with the same approach should lead to a different outcome. When you repeatedly don't get the outcomes you want, though, the world is telling you to update your understanding.

Many people don't want to hear that their ideas are wrong. They don't want to be conscious of the flaws in their thinking and would prefer instead to sleepwalk through life. They do this in part because recognizing that their ideas are wrong is a blow to their self-image: it's proof that they're not as smart or knowledgeable as they've believed themselves to be. That's the ego default at work.

Once you realize that it's time to update your ideas, though, changing what you believe about the world requires a lot of work. So people tend to ignore what the world is trying to tell them. They keep doing what they've always done and keep getting the same results. That's the inertia default at work.

Mistakes Present Us with a Choice

Mistakes present a choice: whether to update your ideas, or ignore the failures they've produced and keep believing what you've always believed. More than a few of us choose the latter.

The biggest mistake people make typically isn't their initial mistake. It's the mistake of trying to cover up and avoid responsibility for it. The first mistake is expensive; the second one costs a fortune.

There are three problems with covering up mistakes:

1. You can't learn if you ignore your mistakes. The first step to improvement is acknowledging where you went wrong.

2. Hiding mistakes becomes a habit. The more you cover things up, the more natural it becomes.

3. The cover-up makes a bad situation worse. Admitting error and correcting course is a time-saver that empowers you to avoid making more mistakes in the future. Mistakes also provide rare opportunities for getting closer to the kind of person you want to be, should you choose to heed their lessons.

Step 1: Accept Responsibility

If you've taken command of your life, you need to acknowledge any contribution you've made to a mistake and take responsibility for what happens afterward. Even if the mistake isn't entirely your fault, it's still your problem, and you still have a role to play in handling it.

Step 2: Learn from the Mistake

Take time to reflect on what you contributed to the mistake, by exploring the various thoughts, feelings, and actions that got you here. If it's an emergency, and you don't have time to reflect at the moment, be sure to come back to it. If you don't identify the problem's causes, after all, you can't fix them. And if you can't fix them, you can't do better in the future. Instead, you'll be doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over.

Step 3: Commit to Doing Better

Formulate a plan for doing better in the future. It could be a matter of building a strength like greater self-accountability or greater self-confidence. Or it could be a matter of installing a safeguard to prevent the mistake from happening again.

Step 4: Repair the Damage as Best You Can

Most times it's possible to repair the damage caused by a mistake. It's not enough to accept the impact of your behavior and sincerely apologize. You need to be consistent in doing better going forward. Any immediate deviation quickly reverses any repair.

Not all mistakes are like this, though. Some mistakes have consequences that are irreversible. The key here is not letting a bad situation become a worse situation.

Mistakes are an opportunity to learn and grow. By following these four steps, you can turn even your biggest missteps into stepping stones toward becoming the person you want to be.