This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
Let’s be honest — no one likes to make mistakes. Even the most careless person in the world would probably feel a little bad about making certain mistakes from time to time. I believe the worst part of making a mistake is admitting it. As humans, we simply don’t like to fail. Even when we know that failing helps us learn, the feeling of failure is not enjoyable.
If you took a moment to think about how often you make mistakes, would you be completely honest with yourself? Would you admit to every single mistake you have made in the past week? Yes, you read that right! I said ‘past week’ because as harsh as it may sound, we all make mistakes all the time. Small or big, silly or very serious, mistakes are part of our days.
Because I don’t like to make mistakes, particularly at work, I tend to triple check everything I do. Now, keep in mind that a mistake on my end may result in someone not getting a paycheck; therefore, that person wouldn’t be able to pay his or her bills on time. So, I take my job very seriously and make every effort to check as many times as possible to make sure everything is correct. Honestly, I care more about the consequences than my ego. I would feel terrible if I caused any type of financial hardship for anyone my team.
However, even though I’m extremely careful, I often make mistakes. The worst-case scenario has occurred a couple of times in my three-and-a-half years working with payroll at my company. Of course, every situation has a solution, and the most important thing is to fix our mistakes when possible, as soon as we are aware of them. But it is an ugly feeling when our mistakes affect others. The reason I’m talking about mistakes today is simply because I keep seeing how many people refuse to admit it when they make a mistake.
I used to be that person — the one who had a lot of issues recognizing when I made a mistake. It was devastating for me to feel the pain of admitting I did something wrong, which makes sense, right? If I triple check everything, how in the world could I let a mistake slip in? I was the person who would blame the air, the moon, or the sun before admitting I did something wrong.
A long time ago, back in dental school, one of the hardest classes for me was dental prosthetics. We had a class that was all about theory and a lab where we were required to practice that theory on a typodont. I was good at the theory, but the practice was a pain in the neck. The first practical exam I took was a disaster for me, and I got a C. When I saw I could take the test again, I signed up and I told to myself, “You are not allowed to get less than A.” When the grades came out, I saw a huge D right beside my name. I almost passed out. I told my professor I wanted a review. At the end of the class, she sat with me and showed me everything I did wrong (which was pretty much everything).
I hated to make mistakes! I also hated the fact that even though I understood the theory, I did everything incorrectly in practice. However, my 20-year-old ego was something else. I told my professor I made all those mistakes because I was sick with the flu and my focus was affected.
She told me to try harder next time and left me and my ego with a D on my student records. What? I know, right? How dare she? I got better, passed my class, and actually learned a lot from making all those mistakes. However, even though I learned through my mistakes, I didn’t learn how to deal with the ugly feeling of admitting my mistakes, so I became a triple checker.
Would you like to know how I learned to live with and accept my mistakes with more ease? A few months after we opened our company, my business partner and I decided to create a set of rules that we call the Prisco Laws. One of the rules is: If you make a mistake, OWN IT. After seeing the number of mistakes we made and how much time we wasted blaming and looking for ways to avoid the pain of admitting them, we decided to take a different approach and create a culture where making a mistake is normal. We decided to stop wasting our time trying to place the mistakes somewhere else, so we could actually focus our attention on finding the solution. We provided all our employees with these rules on their first day, and it is wonderful to see how a simple shift can make such an impact.
Our days in the office are full of, “I messed this up guys,” followed by, “Okay, let’s fix it.” Obviously, I can’t say that everyone on my team feels great about making mistakes, and I still don’t like making them myself, but I love the fact that I no longer feel that ugly pain when I need to admit that I have failed.
Mistakes are a form of learning, my friends. The key here is to recognize them with no shame. The moment we remove the ego around our own mistakes we become free to learn from them. So, follow the rule: If you mess up, OWN IT! (We use a different word, but that one isn’t appropriate here.) 😉
Love,
Irene
