You can recover from the vast majority of mistakes.
When I teach clients and groups about the stages of change I try to emphasize the high likelihood that once we start taking action to change we will fail… and that failure is OK. It might even be necessary for real growth and development.
What I worry about is that an unregulated emotional response to failure can lead to a panic driven ejection from the change and growth process.
It makes me think of Maverick and Goose in the original Top Gun (I know the 1986 movie reference is probably lost on some of you but stick with me). Sometimes when things get hard you just need to hear that it is “Time to do some of that pilot shit!”
Pilots are known for their lightning fast decision making skills under extreme physical and psychological pressure. This skill has been distilled down to an awesome tool called the OODA Loop.
- Observe
- Orient
- Decide
- Act
We can use this same skill to help us with failure when we are trying to change something in our lives. First, we need to observe the situation and our thinking about the situation. Then we need to orient ourselves to what is in our control and what will be effective. Once we are oriented we can decide what we need to do and then do it.
Failure can hurt, and that hurt can push us to make emotion driven decisions instead of observing what happened, adjusting our plan of action, and then getting back in the fight.
When we panic and make the emotional decision to eject we might feel momentary relief… but the reality is we just launched ourselves out of the process that was going to lead to long term relief from the problems and challenges we are facing.
