Move on from Mistakes

Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

• Frank Sinatra

So you made a mistake. So what? We all make mistakes. Your problems aren't unique.

Was it an error in judgment? An accident you didn't see coming? Something you overlooked? An uneducated decision you're still beating yourself up about?

It happens. You can't plan everything.

If you're doing your job, you're constantly trying to rise to new standards: experimenting, going in new directions, looking for better answers and sharper feedback. You're not going to bat a thousand.

You can't expect everything to run without a hitch. You can't expect no friction, no failure, no surprises.

But since you know mistakes are coming, and you know this crisis won't be the last, you can at least run things consistently, fail fast when needed, and when something goes wrong: learn from it, adjust, adapt, update, fix. Or walk away, if that's the right call.

Expect mistakes. Expect them often, from all directions. You can learn from them. You can minimize them with preparation and attention. But you cannot avoid them entirely.

Just don't dwell on them.