What I learned from making mistakes

I've been feeling quite proud and a bit overconfident because I thought that I was now mature and I took responsibilities for my mistakes. I was no longer afraid to apologize first unlike I was in the not-so-far past. 

But I was wrong about myself.

I accept at the superficial level that I am not perfect and I could make mistakes. But, in reality, it is not always easy to accept that I have limitations. Especially it is harder when things have been going well on my favor. And that's when I lose sight of myself.

About a week ago, I was blamed by  a very important client for failure to communicate an important technical aspect of project. In normal circumstances, I could have been able to handle it like a mature responsible person. But I was not. I felt trapped and felt like a 5 year old kid who did something wrong. And worst, I did act like a 5 year old kid—I tried to escape from the blame so I gave excuses that it was not my fault.

I felt terrible after that because I’m in charge of the project and not in that sort of position to not take responsibilities for my own mistake. Even after I fixed the situation right away and did a damage control, I was in a big emotional trauma. I could not forgive myself and could not sleep the whole night.

A week after, I made another mistake again—I failed to communicate to my boss, chief technical officer, about another important technical aspect of the same project. A couple of people including the CTO were disappointed with me. I felt terrible again but this time, I had recovered quickly. I did not dwell on my mistake so long. I apologized to the team very quickly and I admitted that it was my fault.

On my way back home, I thought about why I’ve been making big mistakes twice in a row within a week. Even though I apologized quickly in the second time, I was feeling very uneasy. Then I realized that I learned incredible lessons from these mistakes. Within one week, I feel that I've become grown and personally expanded.

Here is what I learned:

1.     I was reminded of my own limitations.

When things were going well, I could not see myself where I actually was and where I still needed to improve. Only after I made mistakes, did I understand about my own limitations. Facing our own weaknesses and limitations could be quite scary, but without facing them and accepting them, we cannot expand and grow as a person. I will never be a perfect human being since perfection does not exist. I think that one of the most amazing things about life is learning about our own imperfections and continuously trying to fix them in order to become a better person. I think it is an incredible process and a wonderful journey!

2.     Importance of forgiveness

There are two ways for us to feel pain. One is caused by external events or people, which is out of our control. The other is caused by our own reaction to that external pain, in other words, our self-inflicted pain. It was already painful to learn about my own limitations. I made it worse by feeling really guilty about it. I could not forgive myself for several hours. Then I really made an effort to forgive myself. I learned how important it is for us to be kind and forgiving to ourselves in order to move forward.

3.     I have been out of my comfort zone!

After going through guilt, self-disappointment and apologies to people, I discovered that I’ve been out of my comfort zone. When you are doing usual things that you are familiar with or working within your limits, you do not make mistakes. I’ve realized that I’ve been doing a lot more taking a lot more responsibilities and working on much more complex projects. That was one of the “uh-ha” moment and I felt grateful to myself for questioning and also grateful for all the opportunities to get me out of my comfort zone so that I can grow.