Admit, “I Was Wrong”

Situation 1: “You tell me to watch my language. I just heard you use bad language, my son pointed out sarcastically and victoriously, knowing that he had caught me out.”. Some switch went off inside me ” How dare you talk to me like this. What is your age to tell me what is right or wrong” I retorted aggressively, seething in anger.

Situation 2: “Even if I did not explain the process to you, you should have been more careful in the way you processed the order. How could you be so careless” I was the supervisor, and it was my duty to guide my team mate. I did not guide him properly, and the deal blew up. Instead of admitting my fault, I blamed my young colleague for not being careful.

Situation 3: The client’s Credit card was blocked while he was on holiday. He reached out to me, seeking a solution. “Don’t worry. I will take care of the problem. You can use your credit card by tomorrow.” I promised the client. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about my promise of dealing with the issue. I had over 15 missed calls. I avoided taking his calls. I got a colleague to respond to the client instead, a day later.”

Situation 4: I lost the deal. Instead of figuring out why the loss happened, I convinced myself that it was always a lost deal, and there was nothing I could have done. But, deep in my heart, I knew that I had not tried enough.

These are Four real instances in my life where I had committed a mistake.

Four Typical Ways We React:

We can fool others, but we can’t fool ourselves. We all know when we commit mistakes. And, whenever we commit an error, we react in four typical ways as I did.

1. We Blow Up- We react in anger, contempt, resentment, blame, and rationalize.
2. We Cover-Up- We try to hide the mistake, hoping to protect our image. We give an excuse and commit another error on top of the first mistake.
3. We Hide- We withdraw and distance ourselves from those who will discover our mistake.
4. We Give Up- We don’t acknowledge the mistake, and we quit. We don’t bother to address the error in a healthy way.

Beyond the four negative ways of dealing with mistakes, we all have the right fifth choice in dealing with the mistakes we commit.

We can choose to say the three difficult words, “I was wrong.”

You will feel lighter in your conscience, and more importantly, you give yourself a chance to improve and grow.

To err is human. To be able to admit “I was wrong” is also a facet of being human.