Don’t avoid mistakes. Make praiseworthy mistakes.
Most high achievers hate making mistakes.
If you’re anything like me, “Do it right! Don’t screw it up!” is a constant soundtrack in the back of your mind.
And when a mistake or a bad result does happen, your brain beats you up endlessly for it, and the feeling of cringing embarrassment is almost unbearable.
But of course, mistakes and bad results are unavoidable, especially if you want to grow, progress, or do things you haven’t done before.
So let me give you a way to feel better about your mistakes.
Amy Edmondson is a Harvard Business School professor who specializes in the study of failure.
And in the course of her research, she defined a spectrum of failure, from blameworthy to praiseworthy.
So the next time you make a mistake, or get a bad result…
And the tidal wave of cringe is hitting you…
I want you to pause and consider which kind of mistake you just made.
Sabotage: Did you actively set out to do a bad job?
My guess is that no, you didn’t wake up and say, “I’m going to screw this up today.”
My guess is that you were sincerely trying to get a good result.
So you can rule out the most blameworthy kind of failure.
Inattention: Did you miss something that you know you shouldn’t miss?
Maybe you always set aside time to review your notes before a big presentation, but this time you didn’t.
Or you always follow your checklist when doing an analysis, but this time you didn’t.
No worries. Treat it as a Process Problem, not a You Problem.
You’re not lazy, or sloppy, or inattentive as a human being.
You just had a curious process failure.
Why did that happen? And what can you adjust for next time?
Internal Inability: Do you not (yet) have the skills or ability to do what you want to do?
Notice that I didn’t say, “Are you a dumbass idiot who can never figure this out?”
Once again: Treat it as a Process Problem, not a You Problem.
No blanket statements about you as a person.
What is the specific, tactical skill gap that caused this mistake?
Once you’ve taken the “I’m an idiot” shame blanket off yourself, I bet it’s a lot smaller and more fixable than you think.
External Inability: Do you not have the external conditions necessary to do what you want to do?
This is very different from Internal Inability.
Did the mistake happen, not because of your own internal skill gaps, but because you weren’t set up for success externally?
Did you not have enough time, or resources?
Did the partners you needed to get this done let you down?
Was it actually a positioning issue, not a performance issue?
And if so, how can you adjust the external conditions next time?
Task Challenge: Is the thing you’re trying to do just freaking hard, such that you can’t expect to win 100% of the time?
The absolute highest batting average in MLB history is 0.371 (held by catcher Josh Gibson). That means that Gibson reached first base 37.1% of the time he was at bat.
Which means he failed to reach first base 62.9% of the time he was at bat.
Roger Federer won the point he was playing 54% of the time, in all the singles matches he played.
Which means he lost the point he was playing 46% of the time.
Some things are just freaking hard.
They’re so hard that even the best performers only win a small percentage of the time.
So is that the reason you got a bad result?
Not because YOU missed something, or had a skill gap, or weren’t set up for success — but just because the thing you’re doing is hard enough that you can’t win 100% of the time?
Uncertainty: Was there a genuine unknown that you couldn’t have planned for, that created the bad result?
If you opened a restaurant in early 2020 — but then Covid hit and everyone stayed home…
Or if you prepared perfectly for a meeting — but then the other person comes in and says, “Change of plans, I actually want to talk about this”…
You are a victim of uncertainty.
And the insidious thing your brain will tell you in these moments is, “You should have known. You should have seen this coming 😡”
But you couldn’t have known.
This mistake was caused by the genuine unknowns and uncertainties of life — not by anything you did.
Experimentation: Were you running an experiment and trying something new?
This is the most praiseworthy type of failure.
Because it means you were deliberately trying something new and trying to learn more about how to get the results you want.
And if it led to a bad result, that’s not you being a screwup.
That’s you, just like Thomas Edison, finding one of the ways that the lightbulb doesn’t work, and you’re one step closer to finding the way it does.
What matters most isn’t that you avoid bad results.
What matters most is how you respond to bad results.
What matters most is responding to bad results from your Flow Brain, not your Fear Brain.
Responding NOT from fight-or-flight, or shame, or anxiety, or reactivity.
But instead responding from who you are when your protective mechanisms aren’t activated, which is what I call your Flow Brain.
Learning how to toggle on-demand from your Fear Brain to your Flow Brain is the #1 thing I teach my clients to do.
Come talk to me to learn how to do it.
You can drop by anytime for a no-strings-attached coffee chat ☕️
It’s not a sales pitch.
It’s just an opportunity for us to discuss whatever’s on your mind…
And I’ll give you some one-off coaching about your situation.
Or you can book a consult call, and we can map out a full coaching engagement.
So you can not just toggle to your Flow Brain once…
You can practice and master the skill of making that switch again and again, till it’s locked in for life.
What my clients have to say…
“If you're just starting out, you should learn this toolkit with an expert like Pooja.
Now I'm able to open up a Google Doc and make good progress on my own.
But if you want to do it the right way, you really should have someone listening to what you're saying, guiding you, and course-correcting you.”
—Client| Solutions Engineer at Fintech company
I help high achievers build their careers around flow.
This requires…
Internally, learning how to access your flow no matter what’s going on around you
Externally, designing a career strategy that angles your flow at a high-priority problem that someone will pay you good money to solve
Tactically, navigating the transition from the role you’re in to the role you want
Today’s article focused on #1.
For more writing on all 3 of these, check out my table of contents.
You can also support this publication (and make my day!) by subscribing and sharing it with anyone you think would find it helpful. Thank you for being here :)
💻 Website | 📸 Instagram | 👩🏻💻LinkedIn | 🎧 Podcast | 💌 Newsletter | 👋🏽 Free resources