Human beings are fallible creatures, meaning that mistakes can and will happen to you in your life. Once mistakes happen, we have two choices: we can either let these mistakes get us down and keep us down or we can learn from our mistakes, ‘get back on the horse,’ as they say, and try it again. You can either look at these obstacles as insurmountable roadblocks or see them for what they truly are: navigable obstacles that offer opportunities for self-improvement as your continue your journey.
Here are some tips on how you can use your mistakes as chances to grow as a professional and as an individual.
Allow yourself to admit you made a mistake
One of the hardest parts of erring is being forced to acknowledge that we messed up. It’s difficult when we push ourselves to be the best we can possibly be to admit that things still slip through our grasp and mistakes do happen. Whether directly or inadvertently caused, we must take ownership for wrongdoings that we’ve caused. Only then will we be able to identify and work on the issues that contributed to the mistake in the first place. We must first be willing to admit that there’s a problem if we ever hope to resolve it.
Take drastic measures to prevent future errors
The moment that we decide to make a change and better ourselves, we’re embarking on a journey of bettering ourselves that is often difficult. At the time the decision is made, we feel powerful enough to tackle these obstacles on our own through pure self-will, but sooner or later the reality of it hits us: sometimes willpower just isn’t enough. It’s for these moments that you should make it harder for yourself to backslide in whatever way will benefit you. Say you overspend on your budget month after month. You could freeze your credit cards to prevent yourself from binge-shopping or enlist the help of a friend to hold your cards which would force you to hold yourself accountable through another person any time that you wanted to spend. Look for little extra measures of security that you can use to help prevent yourself from regressing.
Remind yourself why you want to make the change
No matter the precautions we set in place to prevent ourselves from falling back into bad habits, sometimes regression happens. It’s easy to backslide in the midst of your self-improvement if you can’t remember why you wanted to make a change in the first place. Maybe you want to change for your kids or your spouse. Maybe you need to change for financial or professional reasons. Maybe your journey is simply one of self-improvement and you want to be better for yourself. No matter the reason, find a way to consistently remind yourself of the reasons why you want to change.