How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(10)
TAKE A STEP BACK. NOW TAKE A STEP BACK.
Eff it. Fat Joe, I am coming for you.
MAKING MISTAKES IS COOL. There seems to be this misconception that making mistakes makes you weak, or stupid, or somehow less of a person, but the truth is, making mistakes brings you one step closer to success. No one has the answer key to life and so when we want to accomplish anything, whether it’s learning a new braid or becoming the CEO of a marketing company, we must make mistakes along the way. It’s the only way we can learn what works and what doesn’t. The person who invented the first phone didn’t create an iPhone 7, and I’m sure the first person to invent the parachute had a few bruises. If you’re making mistakes, you’re making the necessary moves to figuring it all out. If you think there are ten possible ways to do something and you just made a mistake, congratulations. You’ve just discovered that #4 doesn’t work. That’s progress! If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking any steps toward accomplishing a goal. Mistakes. Are. Cool.
Mistakes don’t exist just to make us feel bad about ourselves; they are opportunities that we should not ignore or shy away from. People pay thousands of dollars in tuition to learn lessons at college, while all the time mistakes are lingering around for free, ready to school us. The goal is to recognize our mistakes, learn from them, and try to prevent them in the future. To do this, I’ve come up with four important steps.
TAKE OWNERSHIP
Taking ownership of a mistake is like attending a class—it’s the only way you’ll learn something from it. If you cannot admit to a mistake, you’re skipping school and wasting your tuition. Owning up is difficult for a lot of people because it requires disarming defense mechanisms such as pride, fear, and ego, just to name a few. As a result, people resort to insane behaviors to address mistakes without taking the hit. For example, if you were supposed to submit a project by 4:00 P.M., here are a few common ways to NOT take ownership:
BLAME GAME:
“I didn’t hand in the project because Carl from human resources didn’t remind me. He said he would.”
DEFLECT:
“Well, Samantha didn’t hand in her project either.”
DENY:
“I didn’t know there was a project due today.”
IGNORE:
(At 7:00 P.M.) “Here’s my project. Bye.”
Not only is this behavior frustrating for people who work with you, it robs you of the power to come up with a solution. If you admit to making a mistake, you can work on fixing it, but if you deny the entire thing, who’s going to solve the issue? A Bawse does not use defense mechanisms to get out of cleaning up a mess they made. Nor do they take half ownership for things. Here’s an example of half ownership:
HALF OWNERSHIP:
“Hey, I’m sorry my project is late. Carl was supposed to remind me, but he didn’t. But even still, I’m really sorry.”
BAWSE OWNERSHIP:
“I know the project was due at 4:00 P.M. and it is now 7:00 P.M. For that I am sorry and no excuse is valid.”
CALL YOURSELF OUT
If you didn’t hand in the project on time, ask yourself why, before someone else does. You should know yourself best, so why wait until someone else calls you out to scramble to find the answer? Before you answer to your boss, answer to your inner Bawse. You should want to identify the cause of your mistake so that you can understand how to prevent it, not because your supervisor is going to need an explanation. And when you give yourself a reason for why you made a mistake, be real and honest. I say this because sometimes we use the best defense mechanisms against ourselves. For example, you might tell yourself you didn’t do the project because you didn’t have enough time. That might be true. But what did you do instead? Did you go to a party? Did you hang out with a boyfriend? Did you binge-watch Orange Is the New Black? If you’re nodding your head, then that’s the real reason you didn’t hand in your project. You didn’t prioritize your work. When you make mistakes, call yourself out honestly. Honesty is the new black.
“MISTAKES DON’T EXIST JUST TO MAKE US FEEL BAD ABOUT OURSELVES; THEY ARE OPPORTUNITIES THAT WE SHOULD NOT IGNORE OR SHY AWAY FROM.
FIND SOLUTIONS
Mistakes are valuable only if you discover how to prevent them from happening again. If your next three projects are all late, then you didn’t really learn much from your mistake, did you? Once you honestly identify the cause of your mistake, come up with a solution. If the reason is that you didn’t have enough time, then make a schedule that gives you enough time. Create a reward system that allows you to go to a party only if you finish x amount of work. You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That’s the definition of insanity. You need to find solutions, and not just fairy-tale solutions like “try harder” but real solutions like “cancel my monthly subscription.” Snap! Ish just got real!
COMMUNICATE
Once you learn how to take ownership, call yourself out honestly, and find solutions, you can learn to apologize efficiently, in a meaningful way. No mistake is too big or too small to apologize for, and no ego should be too big to make that apology. The biggest mistake you can make is thinking an apology doesn’t matter. An apology indicates that you care and, to be blunt, that you’re a responsible adult—not a six-year-old child. So whether you did something small, like forget to respond to an email, or something much larger, like hurt a friend, take the time to deliver an honest apology and explain how you’ll prevent your mistake from happening again in the future.