The Anatomy of Mistake-Making
I was finalizing a recent workshop when I noticed the pre-readings were riddled with typos. I had used a new program to scan and compile materials, and somewhere in the scan, all the the t’s became c’s, all the double f’s were gone entirely. I thought I caught this gaffe (which would have read “ga e”) in my review, but I was horrified to see that one of the final—and most crucial—readings, was a typo nightmare I accidentally overlooked. We were about to review this crucial reading the following day.
My internal monologue started to play, a familiar playlist when I mess up. Here were some of my most popular titles:
How Could You Be So Careless?
There Goes Your Credibility
😭
I pride myself on being a details person, someone who puts a high level of intention in my work. Despite all my Type-A intentions, typos would ensure my humanity was showing. This is a good thing. I need to show my humanity more often.
Who Gets to Make Mistakes?
We often fear making mistakes, largely due to the perfectionist culture we live in. Growing up, and even in some places I worked, flawlessness and a single correct way of doing things was the norm. As Tema Okun and her colleagues highlight, this perfectionist mindset can lead us to see mistakes as personal failures, to confuse doing wrong with being wrong, and to neglect the powerful learning opportunities that come from failures. Striving for this false notion of perfectionism encourages us to focus on faults and adhere rigidly to the idea of a "right way." The critical voice we internalize dampens our self-appreciation and discourages us from questioning established rules, taking risks, being vulnerable.
The constraints of perfectionism are beautifully articulated in America Ferrara’s monologue in Greta Gerwig’s film Barbie. Those who are most historically marginalized (those who are Black, brown, LGBQTIA+, immigrants, women and nonbinary, unhoused, living in poverty, living with mental illness, neurodivergent, among others) receive less grace with mistake-making, while those with more historical advantage or power have a larger margin of error. In short, mistakes are high stakes for those who don’t fall within the rigid and narrow definitions of privilege and power.
So who gets to make mistakes and learn from them? Ideally, all of us—without repercussions and without a referendum on our humanity. So if that truly were the case, and let’s imagine it is, here’s what it might look like if we upended the status quo and normalized mistake-making. What would it take so everyone had what I like to call, more “f-up agency?”
The Anatomy of Mistake-Making
Cultivate Conditions for Mistake-Making
To make mistakes means the cultures we work and live in need to be conducive to them. We can’t just mess up and see what happens; rather, we need to proactively build a foundation where mistake-making is the norm, where perfection is a nice-to-have but an unrealistic goal, and where anything in between one’s actions and outcomes is met with encouragement, responsibility, and some grace.
For example, how might we begin our classroom conversations, meeting structures, professional learning sessions, coaching relationships, and boardroom agreements with a conversation about mistakes? Sure, other parts of classroom, school, and team culture need to be co-created, but mistakes are foundational for learning.
Imagine beginning a meeting or team conversation with the following questions in mind:
What needs to be true for mistake-making to be a normal part of our work here?
What is important for me (the leader, or coach, or whoever holds positional or social power) to know about you related to mistakes?
When you make a mistake, what happens for you?
When someone else makes a mistake and you are affected by it, what happens for you?
What does support look like when you make a mistake?
What does repair look like if you are affected by a mistake?
When is repair not possible, and why?
Imagine a team that talks about these questions and co-creates some agreements related to mistake-making, posts those agreements where everyone has access to them, and actively uses these agreements as guides when mistakes happen.
Stress Test and Nurture Trust
Once conditions have been established for mistake-making, then it’s time to stress test those conditions by actually making mistakes. Doing so will indicate if it’s safe enough for people to mess up.
For example, one summer I took a drawing class to improve my teaching skills. We practiced "observant contour drawings," drawing a classmate without looking at the paper. This fun yet challenging exercise highlighted the importance of observation and process. More importantly, the activity invited us to experience mistake-making from the start. No one draws a perfect portrait in this activity, much less a portrait that resembles the other person at all.
I incorporated this activity into my high school writing class, emphasizing that making mistakes is part of the learning process. I did the activity alongside the students, too. Additionally, we read Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" and students learned that perfectionism hinders creativity, that it's essential to embrace mistakes along the way. Every time students began a new project, I encouraged them to start with something terrible and revise along the way. I did the same as my students. As the teacher, students looked to me as the authority. If I was modeling mistake-making, they would feel safe enough to do it, too.
Think about some low-stakes ways you might stress test mistake-making.
Practice Apologizing
There’s low-level mistake-making that happens in a writing class, and then there are higher-level mistakes that cause great harm. For this kind of mistake-making, repair is necessary. A lot of schools and organizations have created restorative structures to repair ruptures, which is great. But we could use some fine-tuning on the apology itself. Drawing from the work of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, apologizing focuses less on the victim’s response (“I forgive you”) and more on the harm-doer’s actions (“I’ll do better”). I’ve adapted that model in my own work, and it looks like this:
Name and Own the Harm
Understand the harm that was caused.
Own your part in it, but don’t make it about you.
Apologize
Apologize as close to the moment of harm as possible, publicly if necessary.
Be sincere and genuine, specific and concise.
Center the needs of those who have been harmed.
Accept the Consequences
Determine what specific work/process will allow for change and transformation.
Be responsible for this change in tangible ways.
Make Different Choices
Integrate your learning so you can take a different approach the next time around.
Don’t expect forgiveness.
The goal is to bear the onus of the work to repair harm, not to put that onus on the victim to forgive you. They’ll do so only if they are ready, not when you expect it.
That part about “don’t expect forgiveness” always stops people in their tracks. If someone was harmed badly, if mistakes are possibly irreparable, or if trust is going to take time to rebuild, then forgiveness may not be an option right away, or ever. Regardless, harm-doers need to take responsibility, make different choices, and do better next time.
Decide When to Forgive
Forgiveness is a complex and personal decision, often tied to the nature of the mistake and the actions of the person who made it. It's important to recognize that forgiving does not mean forgetting or excusing the behavior. Rather, it's about finding peace and moving forward.
If you are going to forgive, consider if the person genuinely recognized their error and expressed remorse. An authentic apology and a clear understanding of impact are crucial steps toward forgiveness. Look for tangible actions that demonstrate a commitment to change. In many instances, forgiveness can pave the way for a healthier and more trusting relationship.
Forgiveness is not just about the perpetrator of harm, but what you offer yourself in the process. Whether you were harm-doer or or the victim, forgiveness can be a powerful path to healing and an act of self-love. Clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez shares about how forgiveness can help us recover from the shame, abandonment, or betrayal we have experienced, freeing us to be more healthy and whole. In other words, forgiveness isn’t for the sake of others, but for ourselves and our own worthiness.
Reframing Mistake-Making
Whether we fail others, fail ourselves, experience small mishaps or even bigger ruptures, mistakes are part of what it means to be human. We can’t avoid messing up. So rather than focus on perfection, which is just silly, I’ll offer a reframe on mistake-making: Mistakes are prototypes on the path to becoming the people we hope to be.
Let’s use this reframe with my typo debacle:
When I was designing the workshop, I wanted to provide resources that were all in one place. I wanted the materials to be easy to access and the readings to be clear. I wanted the materials to look good, too, so participants could see I take pride in my work. So I took all the sources and compiled them in one tool. In my review of the compilation, I corrected most of the typos, but somehow I missed the final reading. In this instance, my mistake didn’t cause harm, but it did create a barrier for participants. I was embarrassed; I thought it might affect my credibility as a presenter. That’s when my self-deprecating mantras played in my mind.
But then, I right-sized the mistake. This was a small one, and no one would be hurt (it was only my ego that would suffer some slight bruising). The workshop was the following morning, so it was too late to re-send a fully polished set of readings. So instead of having a self-deprecating pity party, I corrected the typos, publicly apologized for the mess-up, re-shared the updated reading, and the day went on as planned. Hopefully, I modeled a little humanity in the process.
The feedback from the workshop was wildly positive, exceeding my expectations of how things would go; only one participant was really annoyed by the typos.
Mistakes are a crucial part of each moment we’re on this planet. It’s time to recognize mistakes as guides. They can help us dismantle the destructive impact of perfectionism. Rather than seeking a perfect world, I hope we can strive for a more human one.
Additional learning:
While on the journey to being more human, listen to this amazing podcast episode about our ever-evolving selves and what it means to “stay in beta.” An inspiring treat.
