Mistakes: How We Hate Them

Mistakes.

We all make them and we all have to live with them. Sometimes they are mundane, with a quick fix, others are harder to undo and can bring serious repercussions. M i S t A k e S happen all the time.

Yet, we hate them. We stress about them. We over analyze them. Mistakes keep us up at night because we wish we could undo them or we wonder how to fix them. 'Oops' and 'Oh nos' can clutter our brain, heart and soul if we let them. How often do we beat ourselves up over mistakes? Big and small mistakes steal us of brain power as we look back and ponder.

I experienced the uncomfortable rush of worry when I made a few mistakes at work last week. One wasn't too bad, but one was a pretty big deal and when I realized what happened [after hours of sleuthing] I felt the horrible pit in my stomach grow into a knot. My mistake affected business. This was not something done by rushing, not paying attention or anything else on my part, it was J U S T a mistake. A misunderstanding. Yet, there were still consequence for my actions, which brought the knot.

My boss was out of the office for a bit, so I had to sit and wait. And worry. And overthink. About HOW I would tell him. How I would explain the situation. How I would cop to making the mistake without excuse, just an explanation. Those 45 minutes were excruciating because all I could do was stress, stress and stress some more. Because, that's just what I do.

I replay mistakes in teaching classes over and over, wondering why and how I got everything so wrong. It's JUST group fitness, Pinky, let it go and breathe. Ha, yeah right. I want to be perfect teaching, and one blip on one track somehow creates a HORRIBLE class. Which doesn't really make sense, right?

What can we do to change this? How do we let [small] mistakes happen without freaking out? Words and thoughts can be just as powerful as actions, so how do we stop the self loathing? With our brain. With our thoughts,. WE take control and we recognize the mistake, we breathe, we regroup and we move on. WE acknowledge the hurt, discomfort and maybe tears, and then we bring action. We take the power to control our mood. We arrive at a new destination where self deprecation isn't allowed.

How does my work story end? My boss was incredibly understanding, forgiving and made no fuss what so ever. His biggest concern was what I learned and how I would work on things gong forward. See, all that stress for nothing.

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