Sometimes you really fuck up.
Unless you’ve lived a very cautious and measured life you’ve likely made dozens of mistakes. It’s also very likely that you’ve really fucked something up.
You’re only human. You’re not perfect.
And unfortunately it’s likely you’ll really fuck up again before life’s all said and done.
The thing with making a mistake or really fucking up is that 99% of the time you can recover. You can deal with the carnage you’ve created; you can correct your actions, fix the mistake and or reconcile with those who you’ve hurt.
It’s not easy and since this world is more often about what you do after you really fuck up that matters, you’ve really got to do things right in order to chart a course towards improving whatever situation you’ve put yourself in.
As someone who’s prone to royally fucking things up (I’m begining to think I’m an expert), here’s a few steps to take the next time you really fuck up:
- Own it – The first step after you really fuck up is to own it. Simply put you have to take responsibility for your actions. It’s not about an apology either; I’m sorry is a great start, but truly owning your actions starts with acknowledging your fuck up and taking responsibility for the problems it has caused.
- Understand it – Owning your actions is one thing. Understanding what you did, how if affected others and why it was really fucked up is another one. In order to understand what you’ve done, you must take time to retrace your steps and see exactly where you went wrong. From there you can…
- Learn from it – The reason you can recover from really fucking something up 99% of the time is that you learn from what you did and don’t make the same mistake again. Life and those around you is very forgiving; just think about all the second chances people receive. People can forgive, but they very really forget the times when you really fuck up, so take the second chance and learn from what you did so you don’t do it again.
- Change it – The reason you fucked up is that you were doing the right things; whether you thought they were right or not. Reversing your fortunes starts with changing your attitude, behaviors or thought patterns so it doesn’t happen again. The problem is that change doesn’t happen over night and it’s not easy. That’s why you need to…
- Work at it – No one ever said recovery happens in an hour, day, week or even month. Where most fuck up’s fail is that they only make surface change, paying lips service to the real root of why they fell on their face. Real change take commitment to a better way and a lot of hard work. But chances are the reasons you want to make things right is worth all the hard work.
Obviously, it’s always easier to avoid really fucking up. But the next time you do, remember the above.
And don’t forget to beg for a second chance…that works pretty good too 🙂