Title: Rolling with Mistakes and Improvising:: February 2008

Author: Administrator

Date: February 22, 2008 10:33:36 AM or Fri, 22 February 2008 10:33:36

Summary: The way we process mistakes can cause us trouble. Being in the moment when mistakes happen allow us to recover easily and quickly, see opportunities for humour and ensure that the laughter does not occur at our expense.

Body: 

Up in Front of Others

You’re up there in front of others, maybe a dozen or even thousands. Maybe you’re leading an internet seminar, a team meeting or having a difficult conversation with one person. Then the mistake happens, the blunder, the stumble. You lose your composure, your cool. You’ve become flustered.

Mistakes are not the Problem

You’re bound to make mistakes as everyone does so you’re nothing special. And mistakes in themselves are not the problem when you are up in front of others. What happens is what happens and you cannot change that. What you can change (if you are present and in the moment) is how you process the mistake and what you do next.

Being Aware: Stop Spiraling

If you are not aware of how you process your error or the unexpected you could make the mistake into a problem. You run the danger of spiraling into embarrassment. You may struggle to get back on track, find your place, and regain your composure. So you made a mistake? Stay in the now – what’s next?

Take a Moment

People know when you are losing composure so be composed. The first way to do this is to just take a moment. Don’t rush to plug in the power cord, find the right cheat note, or get the right figures. Rushing about is a clear sign to others that you’re loosing control. You don’t have to rush to recover.

Acknowledge

Instead, just acknowledge the mistake. You can do this mentally or verbally. Accept it because whatever you say now is just a story about what has already happened. You make up the meaning. Dwelling on the mistake will offer no solution and almost guarantee you will stumble again soon. Why make it into a problem? Why not just move on?

Make up a Good Meaning

Are you starting to worry about what others think? See if you can catch unproductive thoughts like these early. When you can see something, you break your identification with it. What you can see you have power over, what you are not aware of controls you. In this way, you can avoid making the mistake about you and how you failed and so forth. Later on you can reflect and learn lessons from the mistake but in the meantime move on when you are in front of others.

Create Space

So centre yourself right away. Take a breath. If you are desperate hold your attention on your breathing for a few moments, Put your attention there instead of being carried off by worry, the dread, the regret. This creates something so simple but very powerful. It’s called space. Where as before you just unconsciously reacted you now have a choice. Space brings choice and options.

You set the Tone

When you seize the moment you are making an offer to your audience of one or many. You’re light and at ease with what happened, and you’re sending this message. You are setting the tone. There is no pressure built up around the mistake because you are in the moment. Your focus is on the now, so what’s next? There is no time to get frazzled or stressed.

Turn Mistakes into Opportunities

The second great benefit of accepting your mistake is that you avoid a potential automatic reaction (fight of flee) and can now respond to the situation yourself. You are not stressed, out of joint or worrying about anything. You free to tap into creative ideas or ways you can turn this situation into an opportunity for humour, to make a further point, to let go a bit and relax. You have choice. These ideas and courses of action will appear with little or no effort on your part if you are if you are in the moment.

Are the Laughs on You?

If you do not acknowledge the mistake and react immediately, try in vain to cover up, or otherwise get your ego involved the laughs maybe on you and be of a nervous quality. By acknowledging and moving on, the laughs are about the situation. The laughs are on the mistake itself and have a hearty joyful quality. When you take control, which you can only do by being in the moment, your own mind and thoughts can’t carry you wherever they want much like a horse does with a slumbering rider.

Don’t Take Yourself too Seriously

The ability to see the potential for humour is dependent on you not getting wrapped up in yourself, of you not being too much ‘in your head’. But what humour? If you knew the mistakes or problems that might occur up in front of others you could plan for it. The problems we expect to have often don’t materialize. It’s more often the unexpected that presents itself. So let the humour present itself by being in the moment, create the space for it to happen.

In the Moment Humour

Humour has a powerful quality when it emerges naturally. Most laughter is a result of an improvised process instead of something that was planned. That’s your only choice if you cannot predict your mistakes. Because you cannot know the future with certainty and your pre-judgments about people and the future often need modification, then it makes sense to spend more time in the now. Then you can adept to every mistake and situation as it comes along with more creativity, less effort and less trouble.

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