No Pain, Just Gain (Even When You Make a Mistake)
Wallace Wilkins, Ph.D.
No one is perfect. Some of our decisions and actions result in less than we expected. Sometimes we make mistakes.
As long as you are growing and learning in your profession, errors are as much a part of living as successes. Learning to prevent mistakes is important. Equally important is how you mindfully handle your thoughts after a mistake. After an error, it is common to ask, “What happened?” It is less common to ask, “What happens next?”
For many people “what happens next” is to punish themselves mentally. After they err, they berate themselves. The tapes that they play in their heads are harsh and punitive. This creates unnecessary pain — and it may interfere with their ability to learn from the setback.
When you make a mistake, there will be a cost to you in some form. Your project may go way over budget. Perhaps you won't win that grant. Your teammates might get fed up with you if you let them down. Some costs are trivial; others are rather significant. Each mistake will probably cost you something.
Losing less
Given that you will lose something, ask yourself whether you would prefer to lose once after an error or whether you would prefer to lose a second time, as well.
When forced to choose between losing once or losing twice, most people claim that they prefer to lose only once, and some retort that they don’t want to lose at all (this is especially true with successful, competitive people because they place such an emphasis on winning). However, in my experience as a psychologist and coach, I have discovered that many people think in a manner that makes them lose twice for the same mistake. They lose once by the external cost or punishment that their world imposes after their error. They lose a second time by the pain and distress that they create internally with harsh, abusive, self-condemning thoughts.
They might lose even more than twice — many times more. They might lose once with the external punishment, then with their self-criticism, then again by complaining excessively during their family dinner, then lose their concentration when reading, then lose sleep with their ruminations, then lose the next day by being sleep-deprived, and then lose some more each time they recall the error and renew their self-criticism.
Listening to the supportive inner voice
You can increase your psychological resilience by observing your post-mistake, mental activity. Monitor that harsh, negative, inner critic. That inner critic is not designed to tell you the truth. It is not even designed to be helpful to you.
When you make a mistake, what happens next? Be deliberate and mindful. Affirm to yourself that losing once is enough. The negative consequences that the world delivers are sufficient punishment. No one requires you to lose a second time by mentally punishing yourself. For example, a participant in one of my skillshops followed up a few weeks later with this anecdote:
I have to tell you that I practiced my positive little inner voice “Yoda” on Sunday morning when I backed into our 4 wheeler with my new Toyota 4Runner. Instead of getting upset, I automatically said to myself no one got hurt, my insurance will pay for the damage to both vehicles and, by golly, I am 43 years old and it’s the first time that I backed into something with a car. I calmly called my insurance company and let them know that I had a minor accident.
That quick learner converted a setback into a reason to celebrate the accomplishment of decades of accident-free driving. With deliberate practice, you can do that too.
Let go of that old, overlearned, self-limiting phrase, “No pain, no gain.” Who says gains have to be painful? You can switch to affirm, “No pain, just gain!” and quickly convert your error into a positive learning experience.
Choosing to learn
Work as diligently on yourself as you work on your work. Rather than using your valuable mental energy to punish yourself, you can increase your resilience by focusing on your next success. You can go straight to learning mode, rather than detouring yourself into pain and distress before learning. You may think of wisdom as a lofty state of mind, but I consider it simply the ability to avoid dumb mistakes. Many of us acquire wisdom by making dumb mistakes — as long as we choose to learn from them.
You can apply this supportive strategy if your team or organization experiences a setback or error. What happened? What happens next?
Let go of an impulse to search for a target to criticize or blame. You can go right into mentoring mode for your team. Focus on what was learned, what wisdom was gained and what the team can do differently next time. Your teammates can readily acknowledge, “I made a mistake,” if they are not shamed into believing, “I am a mistake.”
Focus your thoughts on your bright future, and that of your team. Replace negative, punitive criticism with your positive, supportive mentoring. Create your own resilience to bounce back from a setback. Better yet, bounce forward and land even farther ahead.
Wallace Wilkins, Ph.D., serves as psychologist, leadership coach, workshop facilitator and conflict mediator and is a member of the University Consulting Alliance. You can reach Wally through the Alliance at alliance@uw.edu.
