Rebounding from Mistakes: Why Your Response Matters More Than the Mistake

I’m going to make mistakes today. So are you. Every single one of us makes mistakes. There may come a time in which you get better at recovering from, camouflaging, or pivoting from your mistakes; but no matter what you do, you’ve got to learn to rebound from your errors.

Why is learning to rebound so important? Because otherwise, your mistakes are going to get in your head. You’ll ruminate on memories of failures and things you wish you could take back. Once these things get in your head, they’ll start affecting your performance and your habitual thought patterns. You’ll move into the future, but you’ll be reflecting on your mistakes the entire time.

This will cause you to move through life defensively instead of offensively. You won’t be able to give your all to what’s in front of you, because you’ll still be occupied with what’s behind you. This is all because you didn’t rebound in a way that gave you closure and peace about the past! You won’t have the kind of margin that you want in the present—the ability to try new things, to take chances, to innovate and be creative.

So learning how to rebound is really learning how to free yourself up. You will make mistakes; accept that as a fact of life. It doesn’t make you less than anyone else. We’re all messing up regularly. You’ll make mistakes; but learn how to rebound from those mistakes, and you’ll set yourself up for a lifetime of learning and moving forward in a healthy way.”