Dear Boys,

It is a given, we will make mistakes. What matters more is how we recover from them, that will define who we are.

There are a few kinds of mistakes we will in life.

1-People gets hurt as a direct consequence of our mistakes

2-Things/tasks are not done timely, resulting in miss opportunities, failure to achieve goals/ deadlines

3-Errors as a result of poor performance due to lacking in training, skillset or knowledge

Generally these are the few, there may be more, out there, but the feeling arises from such incidents is one of embarrassment, regret, anger, disappointment, and you will be compelled to take certain actions to remedy these ‘mistakes’ or ‘failures’.

Apologise

If your mistakes or failure resulted in people getting hurt. The impact is direct and you can see it, like you spilled hot liquid onto a person (never mind you like or dislike that individual!), you should say ‘Sorry!’ without hesitation.

Our goal in life is not to hurt people, unless it was purely pre-meditated or there is a specific purpose in doing so. Otherwise, if our actions unwittingly brought about pain and suffering on people, we must respond with remorse. Apologize first, then we can follow up to make things right.

For missed goals/deadlines

This one is a bit tricky, as there will be a rolling, long-term impact with unintended consequences for a missed schedule. Sometimes there is nothing else you can do; the boat has sailed. You can sulk and look stupid, or you can scour around to try and remedy it.

Look for solutions, and negotiate to minimize the loss. Communicate and acknowledge your lapse if possible, demonstrating your willingness to take responsibility for the misjudgment and desire to make things right.

Lacking that skills, knowledge or training

Well, it happens, we are no rocket scientists, and when we are forced to build a rocket, our ignorance will show. What you made might look amateurish and you’ll get negative publicity and opinions about it. In this case, there is nothing else you can do but to know that you are pitted against a very steep learning curve.

Own the difficult tasks and set out to learn as much as you possibly can so that you can do as good a job as you possibly can with what little you know. It will be nowhere near good, but you must try.

Sitting around moping that you don’t know what you don’t know will not help, get up and ask for help. Start asking questions, be the noob, the newbie, and people will come to your aid. When they do collaborate with them, and learn as much as you can.

Sometimes the knowledge you get, might be incomplete, that is where you will need to take a gut check and fill in the blanks yourself, and connect the dots, hoping that it works. Doing things the first time can be stressful and the outcome might be less that satisfactory, what will make it worse is you dragging your sorry butt telling the world how unfair that you are given such a insurmountable task and lament about it.

Learning point is everywhere

You learn the most when you fail, but people will not teach you about your attitude towards failure. Instinctively we will start to look for excuses as to why it didn’t work out, our ego will come to our protection, so that we can still retain some level of pride and save ourselves some embarrassment.

Be reasonable, instead of excusable, if you find reasons for your failures, you will be able to find ways to make yourself better. Reasons are fact based, and people can see you making efforts to correct your mistakes, and learn from it. Excuses are story based, and similarly, people can see how you try to weasel your way out of your own failures.

Reasons makes you work hard to better yourself, and learn from your mistakes. Excuses strengthen your own denial and you’ll learn how to cover up your mistakes.