Tag Archives: fixes

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Screwing Up

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Making mistakes is a part of living.  Turning mistakes into opportunities for success is therefore a much needed skill, sadly one I see rarely used.

If you take a wrong action or make a misjudgement with negative results you can feel badly, call yourself stupid and go whimper in a corner hoping everything will magically go away.

Be Proactive

Letting your mistake paralyze you into inactivity is a mistake in and of itself.  Concrete definitive actions starting with acknowledgement and ending with resolution are always in order.

This cannot take place until the mistake is identified, which is not always immediate.  Action should begin at the same time as awareness.

Resolution not Diversion

It can be tempting to divert attention from your faux pas (French for a type of mistake) hoping your responsibility will be overlooked, saving you from consequences or resolution efforts.

Typically owning up and acting to resolve any associated issues, figuring out a way to achieve closure is more satisfying but more importantly it prevents later reprecussions if something hidden comes to light.

A permenant solution is a better approach than submitt and hope, that is trying a diversion and hoping it does not unravel.  Acting providesthe aforementioned oppoutunity to turn the error into a success.

Relationships can be built on effective resolution.  In general, others respect those who admit and act.  Of course, the corrective actions are evidence of sincerity and are one of the building blocks of respect that can be forged by acknowledgement and action.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Making Mistakes

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Planning is a great way to reduce the risk of unexpected outcomes.  That is your action is misguided and the results are wrong.

Judging the occurance of mistakes can be a bit subjective, one person might think a mistake has been mase while another does not.

Inevitable

While the frequency of mistakes is reduced by planning it is never eliminated.  While we generally work to avoid the occurance of mstakes, they are not necessarily bad.

Overcoming an undesirable result can leave to improvement and of course experience and life learning are invaluable.

Identify, Fix, Move on

Most importantly do not deny or ignore the outcomes when a mistake occurs.  It might be appropriate to only acknowledge what happened with no further action required, the key is this needs to be a conscious decision.

Of course a correction or improvement is often the best course.  This is really just a replanning exercise.  Consider what occured, the root causes and the best next steps.

It is an Opportunity

I almost always gag when a boss or colleague suggests a problem or issue is really just an opportunity.

Applying this logic to mistakes (which can be a sub-set of problems or issues) works for me as typically they are of your own making, you own them.

A mistake affects you and is related to your involvement.  It is not unusual to expect you to act.  Viewing the mistake as an opportunity rather than a defeat, will help you do that.