Perfection is overrated. As a matter of fact, it isn’t possible, so learning to accept, learn from and deal with our mistakes is critical. We love how Christy shows how humor is one of many strategies to handle it when you goof up. Making mistakes is an inevitable part of life. Learn how to use them to turn negatives into positives! – InPower Editors As a child the one thing I never wanted to do was disappoint anyone. I was the kid who only required a look from Mama to let me know I needed to stop what I was doing and make a different choice. I, like many people, felt that making a mistake was a bad thing, until one day a wonderful thing happened. I messed up. This was not a small oops, but something I thought was a catastrophic, world ending, no-one-will-ever-speak-to-me-again mistake. [Tweet “One day a wonderful thing happened. I messed up. via @ChristysIdeas”] Guess what happened? very little. The world still spun around, my family still loved me and my career (at that time as a student) continued. Fast forward a few years and I still hate making mistakes but I have completely changed my frame of thinking on goofing up. I learned one truth…If no one dies it can be fixed. Fixing doesn’t mean un-doing, forgetting it ever happened or even that you won’t have to deal with the consequences, but it does mean you are typically able to recover (and often move ahead) from a mistake. These three steps can help you turn a mistake into an opportunity and recover with grace, style and your positive reputation intact.
- Be honest – There is a natural tendency to want to cover up mistakes but what message does that send your supervisors, co-workers and customers? A cover up gives them license to question both your ability and integrity. On the flip side, when you own up to the mistake as soon as possible you show that not only did you catch the problem before they had a chance to bring it to your attention but you were honest enough to let them know so it didn’t cause any further harm. People don’t expect perfection but they do expect accountability.
[Tweet “”One day a wonderful thing happened and I messed up.” Via @ChristysIdeas”]
I once sent an email to a potential employer and I wrote, “My goals is…” Unfortunately, like so many others, I seem to be a better proofreader after I hit send on an email. I was horrified but needed to recover. I sent a follow up email that said, “My apologies to the readers and my 2nd grade grammar teacher. An extra S just jumped on the page and insisted on joining the party…” There was a chance they would have read that sentence and not noticed my mistake but that was a chance I wasn’t willing to take. By owning up to it I had a chance to show I did in fact have a grasp of English and it made them laugh. More importantly they knew that I was a person who took responsibilities for my actions. Negative into positive!
- Offer A Solution – Saying you made a mistake is step 1 but correcting it is an even bigger step. As soon as you realize a mistake has been made think of a way to minimize its effect. Offer to stay late to redo the project. Send a revised report to your boss. Draft an apology to your customer offering to fix the problem and an additional token of your company’s appreciation. Making mistakes can be bad but pawning your mistake off on someone else to fix is infinitely worse! Noticing a mistake before someone else does and coming up with a great solution proves that you are resourceful, attentive and diligent. Negative to positive!
- Make regular deposits into your reputation account – People forgive people that have proven themselves to be competent and capable. People remember the good over the bad when they believe that person always makes a genuine effort to do the best they can. The key to being “allowed” to make a mistake is to do it as infrequently as possible. Innovation and creativity are always great but when you prove to your employer and customers that you know when to take risks and when to play it safe they will trust your instincts and forgive your mis-steps.
Mistakes happen, they always have and always will. A big part of business (and life) is taking limited information and making our best informed decision. Ideally we would always get it right the first time but in reality we won’t so having a recovery plan is essential. Don’t be afraid to act out of fear of making a mistake and don’t let a mistake define you or your career! Remember, there are very few mistakes that can’t be covered and corrected by paint, cheese or humor! Share some of your professional mistakes and recoveries with us.
What are your lessons learned and how did you make a potentially negative situation positive?
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