People make mistakes all the time, for me the important thing is whether someone just admits that they had made a mistake, especially to themselves, and actually what they do about it that really counts and makes the difference next time.
For example the company who deliver this newsletter had a problem, that is fine! Systems break, people forget things, but what did they do about it?
They wrote to me and apologised for the problems, they admitted exactly what the problem was and what they had done to stop it happening again, and finally they gave me a free months worth of newsletters, therefore I am one happy customer even though they originally made a mistake. So to break it down they...
1. Admitted they had made a mistake.
2. Learnt from it by changing their systems to stop it happening again.
3. Apologised and moved on....
The key thing here is that if you make a mistake there is no point in feeling guilty about it, or more importantly, beating yourself up about it as you can't change the past. You can only shape and create your future. So when you make a mistake then the absolute key thing is to take the learnings from it and not the emotion!
I see a lot of people who perceive that they have "cheated" when it comes to their diet or weight targets but actually you never cheat, you just make a choice!
In hindsight you might well have made a mistake, but I see a lot of people who repeat the same mistakes, week in and week out and never actually learn from those mistakes and change their behaviours to get a different final result.
Another problem is the dieter who thinks because they have made a mistake that they might as well just eat as much, or whatever they like as they have "blown it". The reality is that one mistake is never going to make you obese, but repeating the same mistakes without ever learning from them will do.
Let's look at children! What if the first time they tried to stand up and fell over they thought "Well that's a mistake so i'll never do that again...." , then they would never get anywhere.
Therefore they will try again, and this time use the knowledge they gained of what went wrong to do better the second time. Eventually after a few more mistakes they will learn that using a table or a sofa to help them is a good idea, but then they may make a mistake and fall down again, but by learning all the time and not beating themselves up (never seen a 9 month old call itself a failure!) then guess what? They eventually stand, walk and you end up with a four year old daughter who can outrun you for fun :-)
So whenever I am working 1-2-1 with a client and they have made a "mistake" and are sitting there telling me how useless they are, and how they are a failure then I will always ask "What did you learn?". Regardless of what they say it will be a positive, as they will have learnt something from it, for example I had a lady tonight say "I have learnt that actually I eat out with my friend because it allows us time to have a gossip", therefore she realised it was a mistake to eat with her friend but realised that she had loads of other options available for them to have a gossip without the "mistake" next time.
I made a really silly mistake in my own relationship with Jo some two and a half years ago now which at the time caused a lot of hurt and pain, but I did immediately admit the mistake I had made. We both then took some real learnings about our relationship and what was wrong (and more importantly right with it!) and then we moved on happier and stronger than we had ever been. For a while I really "beat" myself up about what had happened but that was all about me and I was using the guilt to make myself feel better. What really mattered was what I did about it, and what I did was to make damn sure that Jo and I spend a lot of time together and enjoy doing things together and since then our relationship has moved onwards and upwards.
So next time you make a mistake then just think, Ok that's cool!! That is absolutely fine, now what can I learn from this that next time means I will be more successful than I was this time.
And then GO FOR IT!
Have a fantastic week!!!
Mike :-)
