Mastering Mistakes

Oops. Oh cr@p!

Listen, mistakes are going to happen. They are a sign that you are living an engaged life. If you can change your mindset, you'll start to see messing up as an unexpected gift, an opportunity for you to learn and grow.

Unfortunately, most of us have not mastered this mindset. In fact, some of us might have grown up in families where there was a lot of shame about making mistakes. As adults, we may find ourselves working for a boss who lacks the capacity to help us embrace learning in self-supportive ways. Sometimes we may even find ourselves working in corporate environments where messing up can be weaponized as part of highly political, toxic cultures.

1 - Reflect on your preconceived ideas about mistakes.

• How are you reacting to mistakes at your current job?

• Does your company culture look at mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth?

• How did your parents and teachers treat you when you "messed up" as a child?

2 - Meditate on your ingrained beliefs about imperfection

• Close your eyes. Imagine yourself reading an email from your boss telling you they found a mistake in your work.

• What do you feel in your body? What emotions come up?

• (Slowly) imagine mistake scenarios with increasingly more seriousness. How your body/mind respond? At what point do you start to feel a reaction? Does this surprise you?

3 - Practice self-acceptance and build emotional capacity

Use the STAR approach to talk to yourself after making the mistake which created the most intense reaction from #2.

•Soothe: ok, a mistake has happened, give yourself some love and support. Mistakes are a human experience; they’ll happen if you’re learning and growing

•Test. Assess the situation and the mistake’s impact in an objective way

•Admire the lesson. Mistakes are surprises which reveal valuable information. Be curious, not ashamed

•Realize the opportunity. Penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, pacemakers, microwaves, corn flakes, ink jet printers, post-IT notes, and x-rays were inventions realized because of mistakes. Even if your mistake doesn’t result in a new product, the process of making them will teach you something important

Be kind to yourself - and everybody else.