Personal mistakes and errors

Mistakes and errors are inevitable. How you cope with them, makes a difference.

I accept that I am a flawed human being. I do the best I can, but ultimately, I have no guarantee of success. I am sure I make social faux paus despite my best intentions to be respectful, I probably fail.

And, if I am hungry, or anxious, I have been known to behave positively atrociously.  In short, I make mistakes and errors.

I understand though, that those mistakes and errors don’t define me. They are mistakes. If I am smart and I can, I will correct them.

I try never to hide my mistakes. Instead, I own them. Accept them. Correct them and try to not make that mistake again. 

A lot of people don’t view their mistakes this way. I wouldn’t say I am humble. But I do think that understanding mistakes happen and can be corrected is wisdom.  Deep wisdom apparently since so many people flee from their mistakes and try to pretend they never happened.

I don’t know of any instance where owning and accepting my mistakes has caused me harm. In fact, I know the fact that I am willing to accept my responsibility for my actions when I make mistakes, helps people to help me fix them. Yeah – they might have been mad, but my contrition and honesty in wanting to fix it – fixes the social problem I caused.

For me, I view this as part of my practice in personal responsibility. The benefits to taking responsibility for my actions, including my mistakes and errors is so great I am constantly amazed that people try to avoid this.

Don’t avoid your responsibilities. For better or for worse, accept your mistakes and work to fix them.  To me the idea of making a mistake and then not fixing it – is the only mistake you can’t recover from. All else is fixable.

To learn more about personality responsibility –  get my book – The Humanist Approach to Happiness – or take my life skills course – Living Made Simpler.