Mistakes – learning from them; letting them go

I don’t know how many of you have had experiences with mistakes that you make which  leave you with a terrible feeling like you’ve been hit in the solar plexus? I make them all the time. In fact, one of my more recent ones, not too complicated and with not very disastrous results happened a couple of months ago. My chair had lost one of its casters and you know that a chair like that doesn’t roll very well. So I had various guys come and look at it to fix it. But for this particular chair which was a gift from a couple, we couldn’t get a matching caster. So I called them up and asked where they had got the chair from, so that maybe I could get a replacement caster. They very kindly told me not to worry about it, that they would get it done. And they did. It was such a joy to have that caster back, I could roll around and get the freedom I needed behind my desk.


Out of gratitude I decided to send them an SMS saying “thank you for fixing my chair; it’s working very well.” Unfortunately for me, this coincided with me getting a new phone. I still hadn’t learnt the nuances of this new phone (forget the nuances; just how to send an SMS correctly). I typed in the message and thought I’d send it to the husband and wife, so that both would know how appreciative I was. So I looked for what could be a ‘group send’, thought I found it and gleefully hit the send button. To my horror, I found I was sending the message to everybody on my address book. If you had seen me at that time, you would have been rolling with laughter. There I was talking to the phone telling it to stop; it shouldn’t be doing this, etc. I tried everything – delete button, stop, even pulled out the battery. No use. Was almost convinced that these machines that we build get sadistic when we get out of control and they get in control. By the time I figured out how to stop it, about 50 people had got this message. I started getting messages back by people who thought they were trying to help me by bouncing my message back, some who tried to warn me that I had a virus. Others took it in their stride and let it go. Then there was my niece who said “Uncle, I didn’t fix your chair, but thanks anyway.” Some took credit and said “You’re very welcome”. It took me a couple of hours to get over that one and I sat in that chair thinking what a mistake I had made.

I know that you and I have all been there. It may not have been a phone or how to handle a phone, but we all make mistakes in life. Sometimes when we make them there’s that sick feeling and we think “Gosh! How am I going to handle this? What are the ramifications of this mistake? Who all have I affected?” (And it may not be as simple as sending out a message) It could be something in your workplace where the stakes are very much higher.

What do we do with mistakes? George Bernard Shaw says “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” That is reassuring. Mistakes are a part of life but are also a part of growth. They get filed into a box and from that box comes experience – where we learn from and do things in better ways.

Andrew V. Mason says “Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.” Make sure that you talk about it. Make sure that you let people know that you made a mistake.

Mahatma Gandhi said “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” We give people the freedom in our offices to do things. But when they make mistakes, do we sit on them and then take away the freedom for creativity, innovation and responsibility? How do we handle mistakes that people make? How do we handle our own mistakes?

Wilzek says “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard-enough problems, and that’s a big mistake.” So how do we handle the mistakes that come our way? I like the article that Tony Hall, who runs his own business, wrote. He says that there are 10 steps that one should take and I will cover them very briefly.

1. Write it down: write down as much detail. Be especially precise about your feelings about the incident.
2. Define what part you had in that incident: what actions did you take, were they deliberate acts or were you persuaded or maybe even forced by someone else?
3. Define who else was involved, what they actually did. Be very honest, whether with yourself or with the other people. Try to write down exactly who was involved with it and then what prevented you from doing something or perhaps even trying to stop them from taking a particular course of action that caused the mistake.
4. Ask yourself truthfully what you could have done differently that would have resulted in a better outcome. Be thorough; because it may only be a little thing but could make all the difference in the future.
5. Identify what anyone else involved could have done differently and what you could have done to help them to do so. Be prepared to admit that you may have been at fault by just standing by and allowing things to happen.
6. Define what the best outcome could have been for everyone concerned. What would be the best thing that could have happened, that didn’t happen?
7. Now write a plan for how you would achieve the desired outcome in the event of the same incident occurring today, if it happened again. What would be the process you would take to ensure the mistake doesn’t get repeated?
8. Write a list of all the things you have learnt. What was the learning curve for you? Every mistake, when we analyze it, helps us understand something about ourselves or the situation or people who are involved. That can help you in the future. Be honest because some of the things may not be very palatable.
9. Look ahead. Identify the things you’ve learnt can help you to achieve the goals you have and what additional things you need. Look at how a mistake can help you in your own career goal or in your own life goal. Say, “That’s a mistake I made but I don’t want it to be repeated in my life or it will hold me back from what I want to achieve. Act on those, whether they are strengths or weaknesses.
10. Write a clear plan as to what you are going to do so as to put to use what you have learnt. Understanding it is one thing; but putting it to use is another. How will you apply what you have learnt so that it works in your own life patterns? How will you use the info that you have created? 

All of us make mistakes. The key is to be able to look at it, admit that you’ve made a mistake and then try to see how you can move on. Steven Covey says, “Don’t argue for other people’s weaknesses; don’t argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it and learn from it immediately.”

How do we handle mistakes? I was just looking at some of the ways we handle it and I found a few interesting quotes.

• To err is human; to forgive is not company policy.
• To err is inevitable, it’s bound to happen.
• To err is human; to really screw up requires a computer.
• Sir Liam Donaldson, medical officer with the Dept of Health, UK, left his audience with this thought: “To err is human, to cover up is unforgivable and to fail to learn is inexcusable.”
• A Brazilian Airline has this quote above the doorway of the hangar – To err is human; to cover up is sackable.

How do you and I handle our mistakes? I love the one-liner that we’ve grown up with. ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine’. Two things are assumed in that statement. One, that we will make mistakes. We are human, we are prone to make mistakes and we learn. Learning comes from mistakes. All the inventions that have come out, have come because of past failures. To forgive others who make mistakes is divine. Sometimes we are easier on ourselves, or sometimes we may get hard on ourselves. But the ability to forgive is a divine quality.

How about you my friends? Are you ready to forgive maybe even yourself, for a mistake that you have made in the past? Or are you letting that mistake cripple your present and mar or distort your future because you’ve never forgiven yourself for making that mistake? Maybe it’s time to let go.

Or maybe it’s somebody else around you who has made a mistake, in the office, for which you’ve paid dearly and you’ve never let them forget? Maybe this morning you may find it in your heart to forgive and let go of their mistake. You may say to yourself, “I’ve tried but couldn’t.” You may find help in the last part of that statement. ‘To forgive is divine’. Divine is bringing God into our equation, into our lives and He is the one who will be able to help us. God will give us grace to learn from mistakes. He will give us wisdom not to repeat our mistakes. And then He will give us the ability to forgive ourselves or others for the mistakes that were made. I believe that if we allow that to happen, we will live our lives a little freer. Let’s learn from the past but let’s not use the things of the past as extra baggage for our lives today.

I pray that God would give you wisdom to deal with mistakes in your lives or in the lives of people around us.

May God Bless You All.