The ABC’s of Handling Mistakes

Nobody likes making mistakes. We beat ourselves up, we are embarrassed or ashamed, and all too often our mistakes and failures have a profound impact on our sense of self-worth.

It needn’t be so! Mistakes are one of the best ways we have of learning.  Seeing our mistakes as opportunities to grow better, stronger, and wiser can actually help us maintain a healthy sense of self-esteem, as long as we follow the following four steps. 

Step One:  ADMIT your mistake. 

It can be really, really hard to admit a mistake, particularly if a mistake has caused harm to something or someone else. But the inability to admit a mistake is a telltale sign of low self-esteem. We all know people who simply cannot admit that they have made a mistake: they cover it up, hide it, blame it on someone else or blame it on circumstances.  But here is an interesting thing about our errors:  at least one person in the world will always know about them, and that person is you. Sometimes, you will need to admit a mistake to other people. Sometimes, you may only need to admit a mistake to yourself, but either way, when you have made a mistake, you need to be able to clearly acknowledge and admit it.

Step Two:  Be BRAVE enough to accept the consequences.

Nobody likes to pay the price for a mistake or failure. But we must willingly accept the inevitable consequences, be they small or large. All mistakes are inevitably accompanied by a consequence. Sometimes there are inner consequences (having to admit to yourself that you made a mistake and feeling bad about it), and sometimes there are outer consequences (paying a fine, causing an accident, upsetting another person, etc.).  Sometimes, the consequences for small mistakes will be significant, and sometimes the consequences for big mistakes will be inconsequential.  But regardless of the size of the mistake or the severity of the consequence, we must be willing to accept the consequences of our errors.

Step Three:  CORRECT your mistake.

Our self-esteem does not depend upon whether or not we make mistakes. It does depend upon whether or not we are trying our best to correct and learn from them.  Remember that an apology is often required, but that apology is actually a form of admission and not a correction. Correcting a mistake means that you do something different the next time the same situation arises. 

Step Four: DISMISS the mistake, but Remember the correction. 

In other words, get over it! Once you have admitted a mistake, accepted the consequences, and are trying hard to correct it, you are allowed to stop worrying about it and to give up regret, shame, guilt, or embarrassment. This step gets you off the hook and restores self-respect.

Follow these four steps – remember your ABC’s-- and mistakes will stop being a source of shame and become a wonderful opportunity to build, instead of diminish, self-esteem.   

To Err is Human

Making mistakes is an essential part of the human condition. Everyone makes mistakes.  Everyone! No one is perfect; there is not a human being alive on this planet who has not made some kind of mistake in his or her life. Most of us accept this fact, but do we ever think about what making mistakes truly means? Too often we view our mistakes as shameful things that should be covered up at all costs, ignored, or dismissed. We view our mistakes as things that inevitably demean us, embarrass us, and make us feel pretty bad about ourselves. 

But, in fact, the way we view and handle our mistakes is an essential element of our own sense of worthiness and self-respect. Mistakes are one of the most important ways that we have of learning to be better at being human. When was the last time that you learned something truly meaningful when it all went perfectly?

If we view our mistakes as things that make us “less,” our self-esteem is going to suffer a roller-coaster ride throughout our lives. If mistakes cause us shame, guilt, and sense of unworthiness, two things are bound to happen. 

 First, self-esteem will suffer proportionally to the number of mistakes that we make, and our sense of self-worth will be tied to whether we make or don’t make any mistakes (good luck with the “make no mistakes” part).   

Second, by being too wrapped up in feeling ashamed, angry, guilty, or upset with ourselves, we miss the learning opportunity that has been presented to us. Viewed properly, mistakes are nothing but a signal that we need to learn something and be better for it. All those negative feelings hijack the thinking parts of our brains, significantly decreasing the chance that we will be able to analyze our mistakes and figure out ways to correct them and learn from them.

 Nobody likes making mistakes; that too seems to be built into the condition of being human. But not liking to make a mistake – that uncomfortable feeling of “oh no…I really messed that up” – is what should give us the impetus to change, to remedy, or to do something different next time. A mistake is a signal that there is something to be learned.

Remember this:  a core element, or principle, of earning and maintaining your sense of self-worth depends upon viewing your mistakes as wonderful opportunities to grow stronger, better, and wiser.  We’ll talk more next time about exactly what to do in order to handle mistakes positively and constructively.