I’ve made more mistakes on the job than I would ever care to keep count of and, as I get older, that number continues to grow. So how do I learn from, and move on from messing up at work? Here’s the short answer: More often than not, I don’t move on. Not in the way I should, at least. Instead of my mess-ups serving as a gentle reminder and encouragement to make better choices, they stick around waiting to antagonize me about the things I can’t change in my past. In the end, I’m stuck battling my anxiety and fear of failure instead of being able to utilize these instances as a lesson for the future.
I want to treat making mistakes as they should be treated: as a learning experience meant to teach you what not to do next time, not to make you out as a failure. But how do you get over those initial bad feelings and not only apologize, but also grow from your experience? I spoke with a few career experts to get some advice on what to do when you’ve messed up, and how to deal.
Acknowledge that you messed up, and apologize.
Owning up to the mistake you made is probably the most dreaded part of making a mistake, but it’s also vital to being able to move past the incident. If you accept the reality of what occurred and remember that bad days happens to everyone, you’ll be more likely to move forward and not let this speed bump block your development.
If your mistake impacts other people, you’ll have to admit that you messed up to them and figure out how to fix it. This could mean reaching out to your supervisor or manager, or just communicating with your team.
“It can be helpful to focus on the effect, rather than the emotion,” Heather Yassick, MS, LMHC & Grouport Therapist, tells Her Campus. “[For example], you missed a deadline that you’d originally agreed upon. The effect is that it didn’t make it into the publication. Is there something you can do to mitigate that effect, either now or in the future?”
I’m not saying you have to stay at work an extra three hours trying to fix whatever went wrong (unless you and your boss decide that’s what’s best), but that there’s a solution to just about every problem. See if there’s anyone you can collaborate with to get the best result for the project, or, if it’s truly not a good fit for you, maybe there’s someone who can take on the project instead of you. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, talk to your manager about what’s going on and how you can continue from where you’re at.
Yassick points out that we get so caught up in how our mistakes make us feel (which are super valid), that we don’t think about the effect they actually caused. It may have been something so small that there wasn’t even a big impact, and, therefore, an easy fix in the future. Maybe you forgot to send an email about how the day went. You can easily fix this in the future by setting a daily reminder for yourself to send that message. Or, in the example that Yassick gives of missing your deadline, you could talk to your editor about how to better manage the process of writing and set up goal markers for the piece. While the severity of these two instances is different, they both aren’t nearly as catastrophic as they may feel in the moment and, with proper reflection, can be prevented in the future.
Take time to reflect on how you can grow from your mistake.
So, you’ve acknowledged that you need to make things right, but you’re still struggling to figure out how to. It’s time to take a moment and reflect on the situation at hand, so you can think about what you could have done differently — but in a healthy and helpful way, that doesn’t involve moping or beating yourself up.
“It’s hard to learn from mistakes in the moment,” Diana Kander, host of The Growth League podcast, keynote speaker, and New York Times best-selling author, tells Her Campus. “You should reflect on a situation after the pain has stopped and when you’ve found something in your life to give you back your confidence.” Kander, who, in her podcast, interviews women in leadership to “uncover their rules for professional and personal growth,” adds that giving yourself time will allow you to be objective when thinking about what happened.
Whether it’s in a one-on-one with your direct supervisor or after work when you’ve had a chance to decompress from the day, make an intentional effort to set time aside for that reflection. Taking this step back can distance you from some of the initial embarrassment, and will hopefully make it less difficult to come to terms with those small mishaps that you may feel are dumb.
Once you’re in a space where you’re able to think clearly and rationally about what happened, consider speaking with a trusted coworker, supervisor, or manager. It’s important that you have clarity about what happened and the proper way to move forward.
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions — more likely than not, people would rather explain feedback for a mistake than continue to see you make the mistake in the future,” Katie McAdams, Assistant Account Executive at BCW Global, tells Her Campus. “By understanding the context of the mistake, you will be less likely to make that specific mistake and similar ones going forward.”
No one likes to talk about the things that go wrong in their day-to-day lives. It’s a knock to our self-esteem. However, it’s important that we take initiative to improve in our professional lives. We can’t grow and succeed without being intentionally uncomfortable in certain moments.
Just remember: You’re allowed to mess up sometimes.
Remember that you’re human, and mistakes happen.
It’s incredibly important to remind yourself that you’re human and you can’t expect yourself to be perfect, even at work. You’re going to do “stupid” things like forgetting to complete a task or accidentally snapping at someone, and you probably won’t stop reliving those memories for days. It’s going to be hard for you to process them and try to be better, but be gentle with yourself.
“Being kind to yourself and allowing yourself to make mistakes without shame or guilt is an important part of being a working professional,” McAdams says. “Everyone makes mistakes.”
She adds that it’s even more important to give grace to others when they mess up, too. Just as you would need (maybe want?) helpful feedback when you might do something incorrectly, your peers need the same.
It’s safe to say that most of us have pretty high standards and expectations for ourselves: According to a 2020 KPMG survey of 750 executive women, 81% of respondents believed they put more pressure on themselves not to fail than men do, and 56% reported having been afraid that they won’t live up to expectations. So this attitude goes all the way up to the C-suite, meaning you’re not alone in feeling that pressure to succeed. And when we have momentary lapses — which everyone does — we freak out and want to throw everything away.
Tina Hawk, SVP Human Resources at GoodHire, tells Her Campus why she thinks that is. “The first thing to address here,” she says, “is our belief that our own self-worth as humans is directly attached to what we do.” Hawk continues to say that making mistakes makes us feel vulnerable and that we need to understand that our “value goes far beyond the things we do, or don’t do, in our day-to-day lives.”
Remember that failure isn’t a bad word. We can’t learn and grow as people if we don’t have a few failures along the way. There’s inherent value in kindness and empathy to others. And isn’t it worth it to be a little kinder to ourselves and others when we mess up?
The only person who thinks constantly about your mistakes is you. I replay the “uh-oh” moments of my days for weeks until they finally begin to fade off into the distance. Try to take intentional time to acknowledge, reflect, and forgive yourself for those mistakes. We’re only human, after all, and we all need grace sometimes.
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