It's not the end of the World - Guest Blog

Jessica and I have been friends for... 5 years now, wow! While she's not in the "writing" field, she more than earned her English minor and wrote for "The Odyssey" (a collegiate super blog) for a while! She's got an honest heart and a great sense of humor. Enjoy!

-Connor

It’s early Monday morning and your supervisor has already flooded your mailbox about an action that needs to be completed by noon today. You start to panic. That only gives you three hours to complete the task. You frantically rush around and to try to pull everything you need together. Someone stops by your desk and asks you a question, you gaze up at them, your eyes wide. You answer their question and go back to the task at hand.

After what seems to be ten minutes you look at the clock: 1150 AM. You only have a few more things to add, so you take a deep breath. As you are adding the final details your supervisor walks in and demands the report. You hand it off and let out a sigh of relief. You did it. You finished the report on time. A few minutes pass by.

Oh no. I forgot to add the page numbers like my supervisor likes, you think to yourself.

You start to panic a little again. You messed up, you failed your supervisor, you’re going to get fired for forgetting page numbers. An hour passes and your supervisor calls you back into the office.

Great, might as well pack my desk up now.

“Thanks for getting that report ready in such short notice, it was really helpful in that meeting” your supervisor tells you, giving you a firm handshake.

Did they not notice the missing page numbers?

If you have experienced something similar to my hyperbolic story, you are not alone. We all occasionally fall into this trap of feeling like we failed because we messed something up. It is normal to feel like garbage because we forgot a tiny detail, or forgot to do something that was “expected” of us. But sometimes, those expectations are something we create!

While messing up might seem like you failed the entire world, as long as you did the best that you can, you’re never a failure. The only way anyone can fail, is if they don’t try. Instead, anytime you think you’ve “failed,” consider that mistake as an opportunity to better yourself. The only way you can grow is if you take your mistakes and learn from them and you can’t do that if you’re busy beating yourself up over it. The next time you are rushed to get a report out, you probably will remember to add those page numbers.

While I think this is sound advice, it is a tough mindset to get into. It’s hard to believe that all will be well, even though you missed the page numbers, forgot someone’s name, or missed a deadline. You might think that you did all could do and then you might get upset that it still wasn’t good enough; but, if you did everything you could then there is no reason for you to feel negatively about it.

No one can ever berate you if you try your hardest, as that is all you can do. Keep in mind that doing your best and still missing the page numbers does not prevent you from being at fault. You will have to take ownership of the mistake that was made. However, the internal turmoil that you face after making that error lessens once you realize that you gave it your all; a mistake is a mistake and you know better for next time. Use your mistakes to better yourself, not to beat yourself down.