You know when it happens, you get that icky sinking feeling. Or for a really big one, you feel the slime of shame moving over you. The dreaded mistake, embarrassing oversight or error in judgement. It is bad enough in the moment, even worse is that it can come back again and again just by thinking about it, weeks, months or even years later! Yikes! How do you thrive through such horrible mistakes? Here are some tips.
Shift to Guilt
Yes, guilt is actually a good thing sometimes. It is much more productive than the whole shaming thing. I love Social Scientist, Brene Brown‘s research (her TED talk linked); her years of research shows that using shame never works to change behaviors. Your own or anyone else’s. So, if you are tempted to post a list of the lowest producers or worst sales numbers or lowest anything for anyone, stop! It will just entrench people in their shame and make their production worse. On the other hand, if you can shift them (one on one) to see the behaviors that led to the low performance and feel some guilt around their actions or mistakes, then this will help make some changes in behaviors. It is a shift from, “I am a bad person” (shame) to “I am a person with a bad behavior” (guilt). Brene Brown’s research also shows that people who consistently thrive have have more guilt than shame.
Focus on Learning & Strengths
What good can come from the mistake or if it is in past, what good came from it? There are always things to be learned from those horrifying errors in judgement. And sometimes it is your over doing of a strength that then became a weakness that partially caused the problem. How can you ratchet that strength back a bit so that you turn it back into a good thing? What will you do differently next time? This shift in focus leads to gratitude for what you have gained and that you don’t have to make that mistake again, now that you learned from it!
Talk About It
If you can share your mistakes, talk about what you learned and use this to help make things better for yourself or for your organization then you have dissolved those feelings of shame that keep you entrenched in re-living old mistakes (and keeps you unproductive). Successful change and thriving happens through discussing your own and empathizing with others’ mistakes. Individuals and businesses get into a downward spiral of trouble by keeping quiet and burying mistakes. It takes some courage to start the conversation, but it is well worth the effort; just be sure the person you are sharing with will be focused on moving forward and not judging you (and entrenching you in more shame).
Think about a mistake you made; how you can use these tips to shift it into a pivotal point for more thriving?
A professional Coach is a great resource for having these conversations to move forward; call me if you get stuck!