How to recover after letting things slip through the cracks
We all have slip ups. What matters is how you recover.
We all make mistakes. In today’s turbo charged world, it seems easier than ever for things to slip through the cracks, and when that happens it can sometimes be difficult to recover.
Relax. Relapses, slip-ups, mistakes (whatever you want to call them) happen and they happen to everyone. Falling along the way is just a part of the human journey. One minute, you’re doing great and conquering life, the next you’re flat on your face in an overwhelmed mess.
It’s hard to know where to go after making a mistake or two. We become disappointed in ourselves and get trapped in negative patterns of fear and other nasty emotions. We beat ourselves up when we make mistakes and it becomes so suffocating that we often forget that the bad feelings associated with our slip-up’s are only temporary.
Mistakes aren’t the end. Rather, they’re a new beginning. Learn how to recover when you let things slip through the cracks.
The 6 Best Ways to Recover When You Make a Mistake
1. Accept it.
The first thing you have to do when you let things slip through the cracks is acknowledge it and accept it.
Don’t deny it and don’t try to blame someone else. Take responsibility for your mistake and accept that it happened. The only way to get back on track is to take your slip-up for what it is: your self-created learning opportunity.
If you want to ensure that the mistake doesn’t happen again, you need to be the bigger person and accept that it is you and you alone who are responsible. You might be surrounded by a stressful environment, but only you are preventing yourself from succeeding where you are currently failing. By being big enough to stand up and own our failures, we are able to learn how to better ourselves and move forward in a more understanding and knowledgeable manner.
2. Reach out to someone.
When you make one or two little slip-ups, keeping it to yourself seems manageable. When there’s a whole pile of mistakes gathering up around you, though, it helps to have the support of people that you trust.
Tell someone when you need help, and don’t be afraid to be honest about your feelings. (If you can’t be honest with someone, it’s a big warning that maybe they should not be a part of your life.)
When we voice the things that are troubling us, the power they have over us is removed, allowing us to think more rationally and address the problems more efficiently. Secrets can feel shameful, but when we share that perceived shame with others, we often find that it was only our own negative internal-dialogue that created those imagined scenarios in the first place.
Reach out to someone that you trust and let them know about the mistake. If they can’t help you, then at the very least they can help halve the burden of the feelings you might be dealing with.
3. Self care: it’s a real important thing.
You don’t have to book an all-out spa day, but if you’re struggling with the stress that comes with letting things slip through the cracks, invest in some simple self care.
Self care can be as simple as washing your hair or painting your toenails. You could spend the afternoon on the couch, binging Netflix, or just curl up with a good book that makes you forget about your stress for a while.
Recovering from our mistakes takes time. There are a lot of steps involved and self care is one of them. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and dropping all those balls you’re juggling, it’s probably because you’re feeling underwater in your professional and personal life.
Don’t neglect yourself, just like you wouldn’t neglect a partner you love. You can be angry at yourself for slipping up, but it won’t do anything but make you feel worse. So why not try a little compassion instead?
4. Learn to love yourself and life will love you back.
It can be really hard to love yourself when we live in a world that is constantly pointing out our flaws. That self love can be even harder when you make a couple of mistakes and find things slipping no matter how hard you try.
Learn to love yourself and life will love you back.
Show yourself a little compassion and understand that the human journey is one that is fraught with foibles and setbacks. It’s important to always remember that relapses happen and their effects are temporary. Even if a situation is bad now, it won’t be that way forever and odds are you can fix it if you just take a step back and take a deep breath.
One little slip up is not going to undo all the hard work you’ve been putting in over days or months or years. Be kind to yourself and try a little gentleness. When the world can see that you love yourself, it will start to love you back.
5. Just keep swimming.
Dory perhaps said it best when she said, “just keep swimming.”
One of the most important parts of bouncing back after a slip up is maintaining your forward momentum. Just because you slipped up once does not mean that you are immediately going to fall back into the trap of your old nefarious ways. Calm down! Things are going to be okay as long as you don’t dwell in the realm of the negative.
Don’t give in to those empty promises and don’t lose sight of the goals you’ve set for yourself. If you dwell on the things that are already happened, you’re going to get yourself stuck in the past — and there’s nothing there for you but some nasty emotional baggage that you (believe me) don’t want to pick back up.
So instead of stopping in the middle of the track, keep moving forward. When the bad gets rough, close your eyes, count to 10 and then let it go. Only you can hold yourself back.
6. Celebrate how far you’ve already come.
Look at where you are now. Is it where you were six months ago? How about a year ago? Five years ago?
Celebrate how far you’ve already come, even when you’ve just made a mistake.
Sure, you wish things had gone differently. But they didn’t. It’s okay. You’ve already conquered a mountain of difficult challenges in the last year. No one is perfect and no one could have done any better.
Think about how much you’ve already committed to creating the life you want. Consider the sacrifices you’ve made to get this far and what it has cost you to get there. If your friend had conquered the same obstacles and made the same changes in their life, would you be proud of them? Of course you would!
Be proud of yourself and the battle you’ve fought already. You deserve it and your peace of mind does too.
Putting it all together…
Change is hard. In the beginning we feel motivated and committed, but as life beats us down it can become harder for us to keep up. Before we know it, things that really matter are slipping through the cracks.
Anticipate the back-steps and accept that they’re just a part of the human journey. Surround yourself with people that believe in you and that can help you stay motivated and committed to completing your journey, no matter what. Take ownerships of your mistake and see them for what they really are — an opportunity to learn and appreciate just how far you’ve come.
Seeing life for what it actually is (a process of change) makes the journey that much easier. Stay committed and keep the faith. You’re going to make mistakes, but so is everyone else. Be kind to yourself.
