Rise from your mistakes

Every now and then everyone makes some mistake or experiences failure of some kind. Bouncing back quickly is important to keeping you and your career on track. Here are some tips on how to recover from mistakes

DON'T HOLD YOURSELF TO RANSOM: Don’t focus on the mistake or fall into the trap of making that failure the reference point of what you can achieve or not. And don’t give anyone permission to hold it over your head either. If you boss can’t seem to get over it, let them know you have learnt from your mistakes and discuss what you need to do to for both of you to put it behind you.

DO THE PRE-NATAL ASSESSMENT: We know about post-mortem to find out what went wrong. That’s always a good idea. I would suggest that you focus on the pre-natal so that you avoid mistakes altogether in future: Identify what triggers, conditions or other factors such as poor judgment, let to the mistakes so that you can avoid these factors or minimise their influence. Remove anything that holds you back habits, associations, circumstances or fears.

DEVELOP COPING STRATEGIES: You may not make the same mistake twice, but you’re likely to make other mistakes. Know what makes you feel lousy and what cheers you up. Don’t let emotions and delusion derail you. Some coping strategies may include keeping a tough friend on side to stop you from wallowing in self pity, being solution focussed, reframing your attitude.

SET SOME RECOVERY GOALS: You’ll obviously learn your own lessons but you can learn from mistakes of others too. Avoid those who might keep happing on your mistake. If your self confidence has taken a hit, find a way to build it back up by applying yourself with discipline and focus.


Now take action: How do you ensure that you learn from your mistakes?