Mistakes Happen

Have you ever made a mistake that you wish you could just turn back the clock and get a do-over for the day? This mistake causes you to even question the reason you opened your eyes that morning and crawled out of bed. You should have known it was going to be "THE GREATEST MISTAKE " day. The clue might have been when your coffee maker takes that morning to break and you find coffee running all over the counter. When you child decides to take THIS morning to challenge your perfect parenting skills, and your dog runs off into the woods. There would of course be several "800" number calls asking for your time or money and you simply cannot deal with one more thing. Then "WHAM" it happens... the greatest mistake of your life.

Mistakes happen all the time. Little ones and big ones. In business these mistakes can mean the difference between securing business or loosing business. They can be so huge that there are enormous consequences to face, but I believe that the HUGE mistakes come from letting the smaller mistakes take a life of their own. You let a small bookkeeping error pass, or omit a small seemingly insignificant bit of knowledge from someone who should be made aware. You forget an appointment and blame it on someone or something else. In fact, your little mistakes can grow into medium mistakes and then into larger and larger until they are so big that you can't see the other side of it.

Mistakes can happen to anyone, it is what you do with the mistake that matters. You can take the mistake tuck it deep into your heart, make it a reason to exact revenge from all those involved in the dreaded event. You can talk incessantly about it, growing the mistake to unimaginable proportions. You can use the mistake to hurt yourself or other people, maybe even some that were not ever involved. Life could take a turn that you never thought or dreamed possible. This mistake could determine the course of your while life and you could choose to become defined by its unlimited destruction. Or, you could let yourself off the hook.

Does letting yourself off the hook require you to forget it ever happened? Does it allow you to not take responsibility for the mistake? Well, that I guess depends on you. If you have the ability to forgive, truly forgive then you can move past your offence. But moving on means facing the consequences and I believe this is the part that most of us struggle with the most. We can forgive ourselves, or at least tell ourselves we have been forgiven, but without facing up to the person or situation, true forgiveness is impossible. Does it have to happen all at once like a huge tidal wave of regret and remorse? I do not believe this to be true. You can face the pain, face the mistake, make a plan to face those involved, and then work a little at a time. The forgiveness will come... in time.