We all mess up And What to Do When You Do?

We’ve all done it. We’ve got distracted and forgotten to call someone back or send that email we promised, or do something we promised to do.

We’ve woken up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, stomach churning and feeling just awful.

Or been so busy we’ve just totally forgotten to do something.

Sound familiar?

You see no one actually intends to forget, they just get distracted and it slips their mind. It may happen a couple of times, and suddenly a one-off mistake is becoming a habit, and the habit worsens. 

If this sounds familiar - you are not alone, and the good news is there are ways to correct this - for good - but it takes practice.

So, what do you do when you mess up?

Well first - don’t panic! Take a breath and put it in perspective - and do get it sorted.

Yes, you need to take ownership and be accountable that you messed up - but I can promise you that your biggest critic is probably YOU!

There’s a brilliant Youtube by the amazing Brené Brown: Why Your Critics Aren't The Ones Who Count.

And it refers to the famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt

 “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

It’s about showing up and being seen.

It’s about doing more, being better next time.

If courage is a value you hold - this is a consequence you cannot avoid. 

If you ever mess up, then try these: 9 Things To Do When You've Messed Up.

1. Take accountability - The first thing you need to do when you mess up is take accountability for your actions.
2. Apologise immediately. Saying “sorry” really is the best policy when it comes to committing a screw-up of any magnitude.
3. Get some perspective and a reality check.
4. Accept it.
5. Make sure it doesn't happen again by crafting a plan.
6. Take a breath. No one died.
7. Be kind to yourself - you’re probably being harder on yourself than you need to be.
8. Be humble - be genuine and be honest!
9. Take the learning and make sure you never do it again!

One thing I have learned is that to enable yourself to move forward you have to have courage, and let your desire to move forward (your courage) to be bigger than the stomach churning feeling in the pit of your stomach and move on.

Don't let your mistakes hold you back. Take the learning, use your courage and move forward.

Here’s our true story and recent stomach-churning mess up:

We made an error recently and got outed and slated on social media, and unfortunately, people weren’t very kind. 

We felt awful, but it was a genuine mistake. We gave some advice that was actually wrong. It was where to go to get a copy of your lease - we had always been told it was £25, so we shared the information we had and it was wrong. The lease is important, the lease is always the go to document that defines how we manage your block and we talked about it extensively in the article: Let's talk about leases.

Something we have always done and we got slated. So we went to the source, spoke to the Land Registry , checked our information, then double checked it and then we corrected our blog post on Flat Living, shared a retraction and fessed up.

We’ve learned the hard way, we’re only human and we corrected our error.

Just in case you wanted to know you can obtain a copy of your lease from the Land Registry for just £7! As a business that provides block management this is great news – one of our key go to documents has just reduced in price by a 70%!

On a positive side note - always take action.

Don’t let the worry hold you back.

Have the courage.

We all hate making mistakes, but don’t let the worry hold you back.