Recognize the truth of the old adage & Recover quickly from your mistakes

There will be times when you make mistakes, sometimes big ones. There will be times when you overreact, offend someone, overlook the obvious, say something you shouldn’t have, and so forth. I’ve yet to meet a person who is exempt from these oh-so human facts of life. So, perhaps the most important question isn’t so much whether or not you will mess up, but rather how quickly you can recover when you do.

We can turn a relatively minor setback or mistake into a much bigger deal by overanalyzing our actions (or someone else’s), or being too hard on ourselves Or we say something wrong and can’t let go of it, or we become defensive of our actions and refuse to apologize.

When I’m able to see my mistakes, admit them, and move on – I recover quickly. The result seems to be that when someone I’m working with offers a suggestion, or some type of constructive criticism, rather than feeling defensive or struggling to point out how I’m right and they are wrong, I try to keep an open mind and remain receptive to growth.

In most cases, the person making the suggestion has at very least a grain of truth or some wisdom in their suggestion. The trick seems to be the willingness to forgive yourself – and others—for being human and for making mistakes.

Once you recognize the truth of the old adage, “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” you create the emotional climate to recover from practically any mistake and move on.