Why I Apologize For My Mistakes

I made an error while with a friend recently. The night ended with her being not too happy with me because of something I said.  The whole thing was my fault and I'm not afraid to admit it even now on here.  I apologized to her, she has forgiven me, and life is moving forward.   But my mistake has inspired this post on a lesson that everyone should learn.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, we all need to own up to them.

I may be stubborn but the one thing I can do is admit when I'm wrong.  I will also be the first to admit when I am wrong.  This particular instance, I apologized the minute I got home by text (partly because I didn't know how pissed my friend was).  Lesson number two:

Don't let things snowball.

So, my worst nightmare came true and I confirmed that yes, my friend was in fact angry over the whole situation.  The conversation then turned to something pseudo-unrelated but still caused some heated comments which when I get fired up, I usually then go for the jugular (lesson three: don't do that!) which I kind of in a way did (sorry to lesson three for not following you).


 But the point is, we all make mistakes.  The hard part is owning up to them.  Here are some things to remember when in this situation.

1. It is not a weakness to admit your mistake.

Quite the opposite actually.  Yes, you may get in trouble for making a mistake at work but people will respect you more for admitting you are at fault.

2. The consequences may be worse if you don't own up.

I like the work example (partly because my mistake was not done at work).  So, you make a mistake at work, let's say you don't send a report out before a deadline.  You don't tell the higher ups.  If they find out from any source other than you, the backlash is guaranteed to be worse than if you tell them yourself.

3. You did it, you own it.

By nature, we try to blame anything but ourselves.  You're late to work because of traffic.  The truth of the matter is, the only one at fault is you.  You waited to leave your house at the last possible second.  Now, in certain situations, yes there are things beyond your control that cause event B to happen (or in my career field: things that are strongly associated with event B). and then yes, you can say that.  But if you know it's because of something you did, don't make excuses.

4. A mistake is a mistake that is a mistake.

Don't try to tell yourself anything different.  You know it is, don't try to feign ignorance.

5.  Don't let it get out of hand.

If you made a mistake, don't make it worse.  Let's say you lied to someone about something.  That will almost always lead to you having to make up another bigger lie to cover that one up.  Put a stop to it right then and there.  If you and a significant other get in an argument, keep your mouth shut because the angrier you both get, the bigger the argument will become.

6. Apologize

This should probably be number 1.  Always apologize for what you did.  It will make everyone involved at least know you care about the error you made.  And be sincere because fake apologies are see-through.

7. Don't apologize excessively.

This is something that I do.  I know it can also get very annoying because I have also been on the other end of an excessive apologizer.  Apologize once and let it sit.  If another apology is necessary after some time, then you can say sorry again.

8. Fix it.

If the mistake is something that needs to be fixed, offer to do it.

9. Learn from it.

It's a life lesson.  Now that you know you did something wrong, you know how it feels, what it's effects are; avoid making the same mistake again.  And if you do: start back at number 1.