Tag Mistakes Happen

Overcoming Mistakes the Easy Way

Steve Keating Leave a comment

The fastest way to get past one mistake is to make another one. The reality is that the most successful people make more mistakes than less successful people. They make more mistakes because they try to succeed more often than other people.

I can’t remember all the mistakes I’ve made. But I do remember most of the lessons I’ve learned from them. Someone will ask me for advice and I’ll try to provide the best advice I can. When they ask me how I know something many times my answer is “I don’t know how I know, I just know.” What I do know is that the knowledge I shared likely came from a mistake I’ve made in the past. 

Early in my life one of my first mentors told me to forget my mistakes but to never let go of the lessons that came with them. He said if I made enough mistakes I’d be able to disassociate the mistake from the lesson. Apparently I’ve made more than enough mistakes. 

Early on most of my mistakes were pretty stupid mistakes. I could have avoided them if I had been more aware of the people around me. If I had paid more attention to their mistakes I could have learned from them instead of having to recreate the mistake myself. 

Today my mistakes are much more calculated. I’m not all that smart but I’m smart enough to know that I could be wrong about most anything. I try to prove I’m wrong about something before I’ll accept that I’m right. It’s not that I doubt my ability to be right, it’s more that I also don’t doubt my ability to be wrong. 

I get asked for advice often and I want to be absolutely sure that my advice is not based on a hunch or some biased opinion I may hold. 

It takes practice to forget the mistake and not the lesson that goes with it. First you have to realize that somewhere within every mistake there is a lesson. Don’t forget the mistake until you’ve learned the lesson. Once you have the lesson secure in your mind remembering the mistake serves no purpose, so let it go. 

When you remember the lesson and not the mistake that’s when the mistake has truly been overcome. When you practice this philosophy there are very few mistakes you can’t get past. 

Or, you can torment yourself over mistakes that happened long ago, even after most everyone else has likely forgotten them. The choice of forgetting is yours to make. 

Oh, one more thing. Sometimes you’ll make a mistake that requires forgiveness too. In those cases one of the most difficult people to get forgiveness from is yourself. It’s pretty tough to forget a mistake you can’t forgive yourself for. So try to keep in mind that you’re human and humans make mistakes. 

Even if other people can’t forgive you God already has. Follow His example and you’ll be just fine. 

The True Meaning of Mistakes

Steve Keating 2 Comments

I must admit I don’t like making mistakes. I especially don’t like making stupid mistakes by overlooking obvious warning signs or mistakes that come from a lack of planning. But most of all I hate making the same mistake twice. 

I also must admit that I need to make mistakes. Mistakes are a part of success. Every success story I’ve ever been a part of needed mistakes to grow stronger and achieve ultimate success. I believe that overcoming mistakes on the path to success helps people maintain that success when additional challenges arise.

People who never make mistakes had better be comfortable with the status quo. They will seldom stumble upon innovative ideas or solutions. They prefer complaining to risking the possibility of a mistake while looking for something better. 

They think a mistake is the equivalent of failure. Mistakes are actually irrefutable proof that you’re chasing after something better. Mistakes are not a sign that you’ve done something wrong, they are in fact the evidence that you’re doing something right. 

Mistakes mean you’re either searching for or are already on the path to success.

I’m not recommending that anyone intentionally make mistakes. I’ve never found the need to be intentional when it comes to mistakes, they just show up on their own. They often show up at the worst possible times and when we least expect them. Well okay,  they don’t exactly show up on their own. I frequently “invite” them into my life by pretending “that” won’t happen to me or thinking I’m too smart to make the same mistake a billion other people have made. 

Never “double-up” on a mistake by denying it. When you’ve made a mistake admit it quickly and if you need help to fix it then ask. Admitting a mistake does not make you look weak. It demonstrates that you have the courage to acknowledge it. It shows you intend to overcome whatever roadblocks the mistake may have created. 

Stare down your mistakes by looking them in the eye. Before too long you may see them smiling back at you and you’ll realize how much help they have been.

When Mistakes With a Customer Happen

Steve Keating 5 Comments

Mistakes happen… what matters most is what you do to correct the mistake. If you or your company does in fact make a mistake it could actually improve the relationship between you and your customer.

 

When you attempt to ignore mistakes, you lose the opportunity to maintain or rebuild a trust in your relationship. When that happens it doesn’t take long for the relationship to reach the breaking point. 

 

When a mistake does happen there are some steps you can take to lessen the negative impact.

 

The first thing you must do is acknowledge the fact that you or your company did indeed make a mistake. Owning up to it will show people your human side. It will bring the interaction to a more personal level. You should let your customers know that you are working on their behalf. That helps build trust. 

 

Be sincere when talking to your customer about the situation and assure them that you will take steps to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

 

Just an aside here; don’t try faking sincerity, the only person you might fool is yourself and even that won’t last long. 

 

Second, you must put any conflicts aside. Move as quickly as possible to the actual issue which is fixing the mistake. You will never win an argument with a customer, or anyone else for that matter, so don’t make the situation worse by trying. 

 

Don’t let pride get the best of you, being defensive only makes a small problem bigger and it makes a big problem possibly too big to resolve.

 

Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes will help you better understand where your customer is coming from. It may help you realize that they, in all likelihood, also have someone to answer to within their own company. 

 

You know what they say about stuff running downhill….well when you make a mistake you put yourself at the bottom of the hill. Live with it. 

 

Mistakes happen but they don’t have to be the end of good customer relationships. It’s vital that you act to resolve the problems caused by the mistake. Not only do you stand to lose one customer but possibly all the people that customer may talk to as well.


Plus, and I believe this is most important, fixing your mistake and making things right for the customer is simply the only honorable thing to do. 

Are You Making This Mistake?

Steve Keating 2 Comments

Mistakes happen, everyone knows that. Everybody makes mistakes, even you, even me as a matter of fact. I actually never go too long between mistakes. Most are small and I’m the only one who knows about them. Some are large and lots of people find out about them and every once in a while I make a mistake in front of large groups of people. The mistakes in front of groups are almost always the result of talking and then thinking of what to say later.

 

Your next mistake might be just around the corner. I’m sure you don’t like to think about making mistakes but here’s a couple of thoughts that may help you avoid making one of the most common mistakes of all.

 

The first thing to keep in mind is that it is not a mistake to make a mistake. My dad used to tell me that the only people that never make a mistake are the ones who never try. Mistakes provide us with a real learning opportunity. They can show us what not to do and sometimes provide us with clues on what we should do.

 

An absolute key to learning from a mistake is to admit the mistake to ourselves. No one has ever learned from a mistake they were unwilling to admit to themselves. If that sounds like a cliche it’s because it is. Like most cliches however it is rooted in fact. Since we haven’t admitted a mistake we’re much less likely to review our actions to see where we went wrong.  People who refuse to even acknowledge their mistakes can’t ask for help because that would require admitting a mistake. 

 

Here’s the second key to “mistaking well” – when you make a mistake, and have admitted to yourself, then admit it to others also. Don’t hide it. Accept personal responsibility for it then and there. If you’re honest with yourself, a key to success all by itself, you know when you’ve made a mistake. The sooner you admit it to others the less likely you are to make a second mistake by blaming someone else. So admit it to yourself and then admit it to others too. Don’t kid yourself they may have even known about the mistake before you did.

 

Denying your mistake or even worse, blaming your mistake on someone else almost always makes things worse. It eliminates your chances of getting help to fix the mistake. It makes you look like a knucklehead to everyone who knows it’s your mistake. Denying a mistake often causes you to make even more mistakes when you’re trying to cover up the mistake you don’t want people to know you made.

 

Never make this common mistake of not admitting your mistake. Admit your mistake and reach out for help. People admire people who have the confidence to admit they can be wrong and the confidence to admit that someone else may know something they don’t.


If you have the confidence to mistake well then it’s also likely that you have the confidence you need to eventually succeed.

Are You’re To Critical?

Steve Keating 13 Comments

I’m betting there are a whole lot of people who, even if they are reading this sentence, are only paying partial attention to it.

 

They are only partially focused on it because they can’t get past the poor spelling in the title. The two mistakes in the title have tainted the entire post for them. Some people won’t read the post at all because of the grammar issues. They assume that there is little to learn from anyone who uses “you’re” where “your” should have been used. Using “to” in place of “too” likely sent them over the edge. 

 

Thank you to those of you who have hung around long enough to give me a chance to explain. 

 

The “mistakes” in the title are not really mistakes. I used those words to make a point. The point is that when we are too critical of other people we lose the opportunity to learn from them.

 

The most open minded successful people look past imperfections and use what they can to learn from everyone they meet. They realize that just because someone may misuse a word here and there or misspell a word now and then it doesn’t mean that everything they say or write should be dismissed. 

 

No one is perfect, no one knows everything and everyone makes mistakes. It doesn’t mean that they are not knowledgeable or that their opinion is less valuable than anyone else’s. 

 

The most successful people and the most effective leaders know that everyone knows something that they don’t. That means they can learn from anyone and that’s exactly what they do. 

 

Every viewpoint and opposing opinion teaches you something if you can keep an open mind. In fact, you’ll learn more from people who think differently than you then you’ll ever learn from people who think just like you. 

 

Yes, typos, misspelled and misused words distract from the message. Using the wrong word in a presentation or a sentence lessens it’s impact but….. for a leader those are coaching opportunities, not a reason to dismiss the entire message. It most certainly does not diminish the value of the person making the mistake.  


Anybody can find fault with someone else, it takes a leader to see the strengths in everyone. If you’re focusing too much on the mistakes of others you’re also making it much harder to learn from what they do well. That is YOUR mistake and one that YOU should work on before you try eliminating the mistakes of others.

The Best Kind of Mistake

Steve Keating 7 Comments

Everybody makes mistakes. The most successful people admit to them quickly.

The best kind of mistake you can make is one that you learn from. The worst mistakes are the ones you won’t admit. Those are the worst mistakes because you are very unlikely to learn anything from a mistake that you don’t have the courage to admit. 

Yes, I said courage because most of us have been taught that mistakes are bad, mistakes are shameful and mistakes lead to failure. If you’ve been taught that your entire life then it indeed takes courage to stand up and say that you messed up.

If you “secretly” know that you’ve made a mistake it’s a pretty safe bet that other people know it too, or they will soon enough. If you’ve made a mistake the first step in learning from it is to admit it, admit it to yourself and anyone else that needs to know. You don’t need to announce it to the world but don’t try to hide it from people close to you either.

Mistakes are inevitable and if you spend time with people who expect you to be perfect then you may want to find some other people to spend time with.

To learn from a mistake you must also understand the difference between a reason and an excuse. If you are very good at finding excuses for your mistakes then you won’t be very good at learning from them. If you understand the reasons for your mistakes then you have a chance to learn. 

One way to find the reason for a mistake is to understand the difference between an actual mistake and a bad decision. First of all, if you’ve made the same “mistake” several times it likely isn’t a mistake at all, it’s a poor decision. Mistakes repeated again and again are actually choices and to avoid these “mistakes” you must simply make better choices. 

For instance, in most cases being late for work isn’t a mistake. It resulted from a bad decision, either to stay up too late, to sleep in too long at just not leave home soon enough. If you don’t want to be late then make a decision to leave home earlier.

It’s also important to understand that not all mistakes are the result of something you’ve done. Many mistakes come from doing nothing, nothing at all. Some people fear mistakes so much that they won’t make decisions for fear of making a bad one. They fail to understand that not making a decision IS a decision and it is the wrong decision in almost every circumstance. You can learn from both types of mistakes but mistakes born out of inaction often seem to be far more expensive to fix.

Learn to view your mistakes as opportunities for growth. Don’t go out of your way to make mistakes but don’t hide from trying new things to avoid them either. 

If you’re only making little mistakes then you’re probably not pushing the edges of your comfort zone enough. Growth doesn’t come from repeatedly doing what we are good at, it comes from trying new things. Allow yourself a mistake now and then and when mistakes happen embrace them as an opportunity to discover a better way of doing something. 

You may think that never trying new things protects you from mistakes but if your goal is to grow then not attempting something new is the biggest mistake you can make. 

Never make that mistake! 

 

Don’t Worry About Mistakes and Problems

Steve Keating 6 Comments

Mistakes and problems have much in common. One (mistakes) will very often cause the other (problems). No one likes either, we complain about problems and we dislike mistakes, so much so that we often refuse to admit making one. 

The other thing that mistakes and problems have in common is that less successful people seem to dwell on them. They linger much longer than is required to learn from a problem and sometimes they hang onto a mistake (usually someone else’s) as if it were a treasured heirloom. 

Successful people learn from their mistakes. The most successful people learn from the mistakes of others. Successful people see a problem as something to be tackled and overcome. The most successful people see a problem for what it is, an opportunity to come out of a situation better than they went into it.

Some people worry about problems, successful people worry about how to solve them. The most successful people don’t worry….. they know mistakes and problems will happen and they develop plans, in advance, to correct and overcome them.

The most successful people also know this simple fact: you are unlikely to ever fix a mistake you won’t admit was made and you’ll never overcome a problem you refuse to acknowledge exists. 

Dale Carnegie said that when we make a mistake we should admit it “quickly and emphatically.” Denying your mistake is another mistake; it makes it hard for others to help you. When we accept our part in a mistake and acknowledge it then others can be more willing to help us fix it. 

That means that the first step in fixing a mistake is admitting it. Acknowledge it, be specific, be honest and straightforward. Be brief as well, you’re admitting a mistake not making a speech. There is no need to make the mistake bigger than it is as a show of contrition. Accept your responsibility, apologize if an apology is called for and move on.

Problems for the most part are dealt with “automatically.” You see a problem, something doesn’t work right, you either fix it or get it fixed. You run out of something around the house you go and get more.  Most people deal with problems all the time, the little ones we don’t even really call a problem. By the way, if you have a solution it is in fact NOT a real problem.

What are real problems however are the situations that we don’t know how to deal with. Problems may also be something we do know how to deal with but it’s too unpleasant or uncomfortable for us to tackle. So we avoid it. 

There are lots of good problem solving strategies to be found on the web but let me offer you the most important one here.

Do not ignore any problem hoping it with go away on it’s own. Do not hope “no one notices” or “no one finds out.” Somebody will notice and somebody will find out. Big problems were once just little problems that were ignored or hidden. Problems do not normally fix themselves. Problems do not magically disappear and they do not typically grow smaller. 

Delay and procrastination are the fertilizers that little problems need to grow into big ones. Solve the problem the moment you know how to solve the problem, once you have a solution there is no logical reason to delay.

The most successful people don’t fertilize their problems, they eradicate them! How about you?