There are times when I find it hard to forgive myself for mistakes. Typically when the mistakes involve money. It creates a suction for the gremlin voices (you know, negative self-talk) to enter my mind, heart and body and they overtake me like the aliens from The Body Snatchers movie.
This time it was triggered by an email from the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts (LACHSA) letting me know that my youngest daughter’s admission interview would be on Sunday, February 18. My initial reaction was “cool” because Aurora is on the Mammoth Ski Team and she had her first competition on Saturday, February 17. No conflict there - we would be able to drive home Saturday night, get a good sleep and be ready to go first thing Sunday morning.
When I put the date in the calendar (because my calendar is my best friend), I saw that I had held Sunday, February 25 for her interview. Wuh-oh …
A MISTAKE HAS BEEN MADE
My stomach did a baby flip flip, my jaw tightened and my heart skipped a beat. I screwed up.
You may be thinking, what’s the big deal of one Sunday vs. another Sunday? Excellent question and it has to do with money.
We live in Los Angeles and the Mammoth Ski Team is in Mammoth - five hours one way on a good weather day. My husband and I take turns driving Aurora up North every weekend. We’ve been doing it since mid-November and we’ll complete the season in mid-April. We don’t have a place in Mammoth and are still in the process of making friends so no couch-surfing opps. Which means we pay to stay in Mammoth every weekend which is wildly expensive (and it’s also quite lovely.)
Believe me when I say I did a very thorough analysis of all our options. It’s less expensive to stay at the Tamarack Cabins (which are awesomely rustic) than a hotel or an AirBnB. The cabins have a mini-kitchen so we pack food and pre-cook meals so we don’t have to eat out.
Ok, back to not being able to forgive myself, but these details are important because I’m super money conscious.
THE COST OF MY MISTAKE
The messing up of the dates of Aurora’s high school interview turned into not getting a refund for the nights we were not staying at the Tamarack Cabins. It’s high season and I was trying to cancel with short notice so I get it. And I also hate that I’ve wasted $1100 on lodging that we didn’t use. .
When I realized the extent of my mistake an avalanche of gremlin voices buried me in self-loathing and hatred. It’s a surreal experience because I’m aware of what’s happening and am also helpless to stop it.
I see this happen a lot with my clients too when mistakes happen in their jobs or job search. One client forgot to update their boss on a project which caused a delay in delivery. Another client submitted the wrong cover letter. Another client double-booked herself and didn’t realize it until she was in the zoom room.
It doesn’t matter whether others think the mistake is big or small, impactful or not. It’s about how we perceive the mistake — which is often linked to how mistakes were handled when we were growing up.
For me, I don’t recall being punished or reprimanded for mistakes. What I remember is how much my mistakes would put an extra burden on my mom. She was an immigrant who struggled to speak English and assimilate, and was overwhelmed essentially raising three children on her own while my dad worked construction jobs. There was a lot of financial stress and I could see how difficult it was to make ends meet. My goal was to make my mom happy and life a little easier for her.
So when I make a mistake, I’m unconsciously taken back to the stakes of my childhood and feeling responsible for my mom’s well-being.
For my clients, when they are experiencing distress from making a mistake, we look to find the belief that’s underlying the fear of making a mistake. It takes great effort to slow things down enough to get curious and compassionate. And it’s also a painful experience to be caught in the suction of gremlins that may tap into past traumas. Which is why we try to unpack the underlying belief.
THE CAFE OF MISTAKEN ORDERS
The hard truth is that while we may be able to grant ourselves grace in our personal lives for mistakes, mistakes in the workplace can be detrimental for job retention and advancement. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every work environment was like the Cafe of Mistaken Orders?
This is a cafe in Tokyo which is formally known as Orange Day Sengawa. Each month, they hire people with dementia to work as servers. Inevitably, this leads to orders being messed up. But because it’s expected, everyone is able to laugh it off and simply course correct when the mistake is brought to light.
I love that the cafe is a safe space as a result of changing the relationship with mistakes. People actually look forward to a mistake happening so they can delight in naming it, celebrating it and seeing it corrected. The cafe is also, and perhaps most importantly, a place where individuals who are experiencing dementia can be productive, feel needed and be a part of a community. What a powerful opportunity to practice patience, compassion, curiosity and grace.
(If you’d like to know more, here’s a piece from The Washington Post about aging, dementia and this cafe.)
HOW TO HANDLE MISTAKES IN THE WORKPLACE
So what to do if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve made a mistake and you’re not at the Orange Day Sengawa?
First, you’re not alone. This is a running theme in my work. When we think we are the only person who is having an experience, it creates shame. Shame cuts us off from others. This isolation feeds the negative self-talk and fuels the spiral.
Knowing that you’re not alone, reach out to a trusted friend or advisor. Shame cannot survive when it’s brought out into the open.
In a workplace situation, choose your confidantes wisely. Go to a mentor or an advocate to ask for advice and guidance on how to reveal the mistake. This person can be within or outside your company. FWIW, I try to go outside the company.
Own the mistake. Lanny Davis is a crisis manager who’s a big proponent of tell the truth, tell it early, tell it yourself. The reality is that eventually the truth will reveal itself and you need to consider where you want to be in that situation. Do you want to be the professional who caught it early and managed it, or do you want to be the person who fled and hid?
A MISTAKE I MADE AT WORK
One time, I got in big big trouble from a boss because I had left them out of the loop on a project. I was baffled because I was certain that I had sent an email update. I searched my sent box and couldn’t find the email. I checked with my colleagues who I coped on everything and they said they never saw it either. Clearly I had a brain fart. I apologized to my boss, owning the mistake and retracted the steps I took on the project without their explicit approval. It was embarrassing and impacted my identity as someone who is on top of everything. I honestly don’t think our relationship recovered from that mistake, but I feel solid about my professionalism in handling the situation.
USE MISTAKES TO FIND YOUR PEOPLE
What I’m slowly learning is to separate out my childhood wound of being a burden to my mom when I make a mistake and accepting that all humans make mistakes. The best any of us can do is own it, learn from it and use mistakes as a magnet for “our people.” The boss I was working with who couldn’t accept that my brain fart was an anomaly was not my people.
I’m in the process of building my own metaphorical “Cafe of Mistaken Orders” filled with like-minded people who get curious about blunders and help me to find new best practices. These like-minded people also hold the belief that we are all well-intentioned and are doing the best we can with the resources we currently possess.
To wrap up my Mammoth Ski Team - LACHSA blunder, I have a new best practice. No, it’s not to compulsively check my work every hour of every day – although it was on the list of ideas to consider!
My new best practice is to remind myself that I’m no longer a child valiantly striving to take care of my mother. I’m an adult who has the resources to respond when mistakes happen — and accept the hard truth that sometimes mistakes will cost me money, opportunity, relationships, trust, or my reputation. But those costs are not permanent and can be course corrected.
How do I remember this new best practice? I keep a photo of myself as a kid on my desk.
BOTTOM LINE
Mistakes are inevitable, sorta like whenever I eat onions I have stomach issues. Is that an overshare? 😁
It’s so hard (at least for me!) to embrace imperfections, but when I get support and define new best practices I’m able to build out my community and find agency.
Final thought: It’s not so much that mistakes define us, it’s how we navigate them that shapes our identity. Do I want to be the person who hides in shame or blames others? Or do I want to be like an Olympic athlete who perseveres and takes every knock as an opportunity?
JOURNAL PROMPTS
A theme in today’s blog is self-compassion. Here are five journal prompts to help you dig and connect with that self-compassion, and what becomes possible when you do.
Reflect on a recent mistake you made involving money. How did you initially react, and what emotions did you experience? If money is not a trigger for you, what do you notice is a common trigger for you?
Consider your upbringing and how mistakes were handled in your family. How might these experiences influence your relationship with self-forgiveness today?
Think about a mistake you made in your professional life. How did you handle it, and what were the outcomes?
Imagine yourself in a workplace environment where mistakes are openly acknowledged and treated with compassion, similar to the Cafe of Mistaken Orders. How would this shift in perspective impact your approach to work?
Reflect on a time when you struggled to forgive yourself for a mistake. What steps can you take to cultivate self-compassion and acceptance in similar situations in the future?
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My blog aims to help people achieve their ambitious goals, their moonshot if you will. 😃 Oftentimes, though, we neglect an essential aspect of pursuing our dreams: the inevitable missteps, obstacles, and failures that come our way. Failing to acknowledge and process these losses properly can lead to imposter syndrome, burnout, low self-esteem, confusion, and even result in completely abandoning our dreams. 😟 That's why I strongly advocate for embracing grief awareness (along with other tools like values identification, knowing your why, sharpening executive function, habit forming, and more.) By doing so, we can effectively navigate challenges, regain motivation, and hit our moonshots. ✌🏾️ If you know someone who could benefit, please share this newsletter or recommend me to them. 🙏
How to Bounce Back from Blunders