Lesson 15 - I screwed up

Coaching for College Students   Lesson 15 - I screwed up!! In our lessons so far, we have looked at attitude, goals (especial Big Hairy Audacious Goals), being remarkable, working towards Great, and avoiding pitfalls. But … someplace along the line will come the “I screwed up” moments.  The moments where I really left the tracks and did something wrong. We all have done it – so how to approach it. 1)     Admit it.  All too frequently we want to find a ‘scapegoat’  - someone or something to blame the problem on.  “I put the cake in the oven and forgot to set the timer.  Now the whole house spells like burnt cake.  I screwed up”. (Not … “I was watching it and somehow the timer was faulty and didn’t go off” or “I was watching it carefully when I got this important phone call and left the kitchen to talk on the phone”) 2)      See what can be salvaged.  Sometimes there are things that can be salvaged – maybe there is something we can use out of the situation.  3)      Put it behind you – but tuck the experience in your brain as a “Lesson Learned”.  There is an old experience, we learn from our mistakes and I’m so smart because of all my mistakes. Story:  I had Brian (not real name) as a student.  He was a good student, but not one of the stellar students – worked hard.  Brian was also a non-traditional student – married, two boys – had worked in a blue-collar job before getting his information systems degree. Brian got a good starting job with a major insurance company writing code and being a system analyst. I’m not sure what happened, but about five years after graduation, Brian was fired from the company.  Again, not sure – poor coding?  Slow?  Something.  In a couple of years after that, Brian was divorced and separated from his two sons.  And … sometime after that, Brian committed suicide.  Someplace Brian screwed up.  My guess is that he took it very personally, probably got morose – maybe even unpleasant to be around.  His wife got tired of that and left him.  As his attitude continued on a downward trend, he took ‘the easy way out’ and killed himself.  Not a success story – but a story to learn from.  He screwed up somehow.  He could have fixed it – changed his attitude, done an analysis on what caused him to be fired and changed his habits, behavior and life.  He could have looked for a job that was a better match for him.  But … he didn’t.  He didn’t salvage much of anything; he didn’t put it behind him. Assignment: Think of some mistakes from your past.  How did you handle them?  If you could visit the mistakes again, how might you approach them now? Why is ‘admitting’ our mistakes good?  What value is there in being humiliated? Why should we keep a mental file of ‘lessons learned’?  How can that help us? Do you know of any people like Brian?  What else could you do if you were in his situation?