CGS Member Post: Development Tip – Mistake Recovery

 

Welcome to the first of many posts written by members of the City Girl Savings community! We’re happy to share the work of CGS members that helps us all grow, develop, and learn. Feel free to submit your own work to us! 

 

Let your emotions get the best of you at work?  Overreact to a colleague’s comment?  Sent the wrong email to the wrong person?  We have all made mistakes, but in most cases the recovery is more important than the mistake itself.  Here are some things we can do to be proactive after being reactive:

Remain Calm: Whatever has occurred, the pain is temporary.  Once we reconcile that the gravity of the situation is not life or death, but merely a fleeting occurrence of frustration, we will be confident enough to summon the courage within ourselves to prepare for the next steps.

Give Yourself 10 Minutes to Put Emotions Aside: Sure, go have a cry alone in the dark corner of the garage or grab your frolleague/fro-worker (friend + colleague/coworker) you trust for a vent session.  Better yet, instead of taking working time away from a coworker, call someone totally removed from the situation and get all the emotions out.  It is better not to hold on to the heavy, icky, and defeating feeling of disappointment in yourself, as that might bubble over at the exact.wrong.moment (trust me – I speak from experience).

Take Responsibility: Try and offer a solution if you haven’t already fixed the problem.  Own this mistake for what it is – a lesson learned that we can take away a new understanding of ourselves as professionals.  Ex: “I understand the implications of this error and I plan to take the next right action by…”

Forgive Yourself:  The key here is growth, not guilt.

If anyone has any great mistake recovery tips, please share in the comments below or message me!

Megan Miller

@megmiller6

Fairfax, VA

Megan works as an HR Administrator for Primatics Financial in the Washington, D.C./Metro area. She joined the CGS community on 2/11/2016.

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11 thoughts on “CGS Member Post: Development Tip – Mistake Recovery”

  1. Great read Meagan!…… @megmiller6 I definitely get emotional with everything and sometimes take things personally. I constantly have to remind myself that everyone makes mistakes, have bad weeks, and often times just miss the mark its apart of life we’re but its like you said take responsibility and move forward!! 🙂

  2. LOVE..LOVE..LOVE this post! I think we have all fell victim to making mistakes in the work force but this post just confirmed that of course mistakes are made, but what’s more important is the recovery after the mistake has been made. Remaining calm is the most important thing otherwise you’ll over react and possibly make the situation worst. Great read @megmiller6 I’ll def be keeping this in mind for the future

    1. Thank you for taking the time to read it Taelor! The remaining calm part is super important. If we can be pro-active and live in the solution, rather than the problem, we will be much better off in this proactive mode.

  3. I have definitely found myself in this situation before and have seen others in this situation as well. I think you are right @ @megmiller6, it is so much better to be accountable for your actions, face reality, and learn from your lesson so that you don’t make the same mistake twice. I love this article because, i think at times we forget that we are humans and we try to be perfect, but wake up call, we are humans and we make mistakes. So, all we can do is learn from them. Thanks for sharing

    1. Thank you! I have a couple more posts in the works to be shared on LinkedIn and hopefully here as well soon 🙂
      Next piece is a bit on my favorite words of wisdom I’ve been lucky enough to hear so far in my career.

  4. It astonishes me how much emotion comes into play in the workforce as women. It was enlightening to see that I’m not the only person who on occasion needed a 10-minute walk to clear my head and refocus on the task or problem that I must solve. Thank you for sharing this. I really needed the information you provided especially about growth not guilt..

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