Today’s coping tip is to choose to see your mistakes as steps to help you learn.
I preach this with the kids I coach. Mistakes will happen, but let’s learn and grow from them and don’t dwell on them as failures.
I make mistakes regularly. I typo things, I have mis-written something and needed to issue a correction to an article. I’ve published things that were plagiarized and sent apologies after pulling them.
These things have taught me to slow down, double check my work, and accept responsibility. At work, I have learned that when working with sales, I need to be a little more cautious about how I present something. I’ve learned to be cognizant of different peoples’ roles and how changes affect them. Or even how proposals might affect their job.
Each time I type something incorrect, or I offend/upset someone, or even when I might do something else wrong, I don’t get too upset, and I don’t say I’ll never do it again. Instead, I usually take a few minutes and try to think about how I might prevent this again in the future.
It’s a good way to learn how to change habits and possibly prevent mistakes.
I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.