Two days ago I realized I was making a mistake. This was a big mistake that has probably cost me a lot in my business and held me back a bit. The worst part about this mistake is that I realized that I’d been making it for about a year. That’s right, I’ve been making the same mistake over and over again for a year. Unbelievable isn’t it!

Like most people my initial reaction to learning about this mistake was to want to beat myself up. It was such an obvious mistake. I didn”t understand how I could’ve been making it for so lone. Then I  realized that there are some good lessons that we all can learn from the mistakes we make.

Acknowledge the mistake

If you don’t admit you’ve screwed up how they you expect to fix it. The first step in learning from your mistakes is admitting that you’ve made them in the first place. This can be one of the hardest steps for many people, but once you’ve accomplished this step you can move on to correcting your mistake and making your situation much better.

Blaming others for your mistakes won’t get you anywhere. We all know someone who blames everyone else for their situation but never takes responsibility for themselves. This approach to life doesn’t only take away the power you should have in your own life but limits your ability to change and overcome your difficult situations. Ask yourself what you did to contribute to the situation.

Don’t beat yourself up.

Take responsibility but don’t beat yourself up over it. This can be hard to do. We tend to be our worst critics. When your mistake is as obvious as mine was it’s easy to tell yourself that your an idiot over and over again.

That doesn’t help anything. You’ve already made the mistake. Being extra hard on yourself about it isn’t going to make the mistake go away.

It may be a cliche thing to say, but we all make mistakes. It’s part of being human.

Repair the damage.

Once you’ve realized you’ve made a mistake you need to fix it. If your mistake has hurt someone you need to apologize and try to correct the situation.

When it involves another person, restitution for mistakes made can be very difficult, but acting in sincerity is the best way to move forward. Remember that you can’t force someone to forgive you. You must give the other person the time and space they need to process the situation and make the choice to forgive.

The mistake I made while quite big in some ways is easy to correct, luckily. My corrections will just take up some time, but once they’re done, they’re done and I can move forward and past that mistake.

Evaluate the situation

What lessons can you learn from your mistake? At first you may think that you can’t learn anything, but I encourage you to sit down and spend some real time evaluating the lessons you can learn. It’s only by doing this that you ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes again. You really don’t want to do it again, do you?

You may need to talk the situation through with someone else or even write it down in a journal. Talking about a situation or writing it down can make it easier for you to process the information and can make the information more memorable.

Move on

Once you’ve done these basic steps there’s no need to dwell in the past. Move on. You have other things to do now.

Photo by Just SallyRye

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