How To Handle Your Screw Ups

The competition was fierce. Between the tight defense and contested shots, points were hard to come by. We play to 21 points, 2′s and 3′s, and you must win by a total of 4 points to claim a victory. Our team was down, 20-19. The other guys shoot and miss! I get the rebound and dribble frantically up the court to try for a quick score. I’ve got a guy open on the wing for an open shot, but as I get to the three point line I…

Decide to shoot a running 3 pointer. As the shot clangs off the basketball rim and goes to the side, I rush to try and save it, but it goes out of bounds. I scratch my head and wonder what the heck I just did. Shortly thereafter, the other team nails a 3 pointer and beats us, 23 – 19.

I felt some remorse for letting our team down. If I had just made the right decision, we may have come out on top. I let them know that I messed up and they are a good group of guys – they aren’t going to give me a hard time. But internally, I felt like it was completely my fault.

Screw Ups

This isn’t the only time I’ve screwed up in my life. I want to make it very clear that I screw up frequently. My goal of this article is to show you that there are ways to prevent yourself from being completely consumed by your screw ups to the point where it’s hard to focus on anything else. I call this being limited by your screw ups.

• Broke my arm trying to hit a large kickball.
• Ran out of science class in 9th grade when I was asked to read in front of the class.
• Was dumped in high school by a girl.
• Took a girl to high school prom, but she spent the whole time not talking to me and staring off into the distance.
• Was put on probation in college for poor grades.
• Took 5 hours to kiss my wife for the first time.
• Took the wrong freeway entrance and got honked at while seeing red WRONG WAY signs in my face.
• Was fired in college from a data entry job.
• Was laid off from a startup company that I helped create.
• Lost thousands of dollars in the sock market.

What do your screw ups look like? Are they with members of the opposite sex usually? What about work-related incidents? How about physical injuries?

How To Handle Screw Ups

I think the point is, we can take a look at our lives and really focus on the moments where we’ve screwed up to the point we become ensnared and find it difficult to focus. I know for myself, when I think about my senior prom, I can really get a lump in my stomach realizing what a fiasco it was. My date just stared off into the distance and I could tell she was not interested in being there. Here now is the 3 step process to handle your own screw ups.

1. Recognize the screw up

The best way I can think of to handle a screw up is to affirm the truth of it. Recognize it for what it is. If you deleted all your files on your computer’s hard drive, the best thing you can do is say, “I screwed up and deleted all my files.” What about if you froze around that person you are interested in? The best thing you can say is, “I froze like a Popsicle from shyness.”

There is a therapeutic sense that comes from openly admitting to yourself your own screw ups. This key first step will keep you from being disillusioned about who you are. I think one of the worst things you can do is become disillusioned about who you are. What does this mean? Simply put, it means pretending to be something you are not. It’s like a government cover-up, except for your own identity. What true sense of purpose and meaning can you have when your life is internally mis-represented?

2. Don’t Make the Screw Up Worse Than It Is

One time, a while ago, my wife did something which was probably insignificant, but I remember my thoughts taking what happened and playing out a scenario where we separated and eventually got divorced. And all because of some silly little thing. This is called, “blowing it out of proportion.” It’s like having a beetle crawling on your floor and running and screaming in terror like you are going to die.

Another way to look at this is being a drama queen or drama king. It’s possible to thrive on conflict and screw ups. It adds an element of variety to life to have this conflict. Whether you are a corporate employee, or member of a World of Warcraft guild, chances are if you are talking about drama and politics, that you are seeing first-hand how things can get blown out of proportion.

3. Make The Future Better Than the Past

The final step, after you have affirmed the truth and not blown what you’ve done out of proportion is to make the screw up better than it is. This is what a true leader does. Jim Rohn and Anthony Robbins (who learned from Jim Rohn) have both shared this. A true leader sees a situation as it is, doesn’t make it worse than it is, and finds a way to make it better than it is.

The way that helps me to make something better than it is is this. I make a decision to improve a skill. Perhaps my screw up was not having a skill. That can be fixed. Maybe the screw up was due to shyness. I take the time to put myself into public speaking situations to overcome this fear. The way to make it better is to learn new skills or practice in fearful situations (such as a situation where you had a screw up).

Conclusion

I am going to make a mistake and probably soon. So are you. See that mistake as it is, but don’t be a drama queen/king. See it as it is, and then see the skills you could gain to make it better, or the practice and discipline you could introduce to create a more favorable situation.