forgiveness

It’s Okay to Make Mistakes

November 28, 2023 21 Comments

Do you ever make mistakes that in the moment seem like a huge deal? Like forgetting your passport at home before an international flight, accidentally sending an email to the wrong recipient, saying something to someone important that you regret?

We’ve all made these types of mistakes.

In the big scheme of things, though, most of these mistakes really aren’t a big deal. In fact, they’re actually great learning lessons that can help us learn, grow, and evolve on many different levels.

Why It’s Okay to Make Mistakes

A lot of us are too hard on ourselves. We don’t give ourselves or those close to us much permission to make mistakes.

We actually spend and waste a lot of time worrying about making mistakes. And in turn, many of us can be unnecessarily critical of those around us when they make mistakes.

When someone is compassionate and supportive towards us when we make a mistake, it reminds us that having compassion for ourselves when we make a mistake – instead of judgment and criticism – is a much healthier and more positive way to respond. This is also true for how we engage with others when they make mistakes.

How do you relate to yourself and others when mistakes are made?

While it often depends on the nature of the mistake (some are bigger than others, of course), many of us tend to be hyper-critical of ourselves and those around us when it comes to errors. And the stress, criticism, and negativity we associate with mistakes can actually cause unnecessary harm, fear, and anguish – in essence, making a difficult situation even worse.

What if we had more freedom to make mistakes and gave the people around us permission to mess things up as well? It’s not that we’d start rooting for or expecting things to go wrong, we’d simply have more compassion and understanding when they did (which at some level is inevitable in life and business).

By granting more permission for mistakes, we actually create an environment within ourselves, as well as our key relationships and teams, that is conducive to trust, connection, risk-taking, forgiveness, creativity, and genuine success.

While it can seem a bit uncomfortable, and even counter-intuitive, allowing more freedom for mistakes to be made, ironically creates the conditions for less errors to occur, and more fun and productivity to take place.

How to Expand Your Capacity for Mistakes

Here are a few things to think about and focus on to expand your capacity for mistakes in a positive way:

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

At the end of the day, the vast majority of mistakes we make in life really aren’t all that big of a deal. The bigger issue when it comes to mistakes is either our fear of making them or our reaction to them once they have been made (by us or other people). As we lighten up and practice letting things go, we find that most things we stress or worry about are really small things. Living life with this awareness allows us to have more peace and a lot less stress.

Forgive

When someone makes a mistake, especially a big one, forgiveness is an essential aspect of moving through it. Most of the time there is no malicious intent by the person who made the mistake.

Sadly, we tend to spend and waste a lot of time and energy either with blame or resentment, instead of focusing our attention in a more productive, positive, and healthy direction – forgiveness. It’s often quite difficult, but most important, for us to forgive ourselves when we make a mistake. However, if we can remember that most of the time we’re doing the best we can (as are others), we can hopefully get off our own backs and allow ourselves to be human (which means we aren’t perfect, nor is anyone else).

One of the main reasons a lot of us don’t trust ourselves as much as we could is that we haven’t forgiven ourselves for our past mistakes. When we do this, it creates so much freedom and peace – both for us and for others.

Look For the Lesson

There are often many lessons for us to learn when a mistake is made. While it’s not always the easiest or most enjoyable way to grow, it’s often quite effective as it gets our attention.

Mistakes are how we learn in life. Most of the time when we make a mistake, even a really big one, we gain a great deal of knowledge, experience, and insight that is invaluable.

Remember: it’s okay to make mistakes. By accepting this, you expand your capacity for imperfection in a positive way and gain even more self-trust.

How can you give yourself and others more permission to make mistakes? Feel free to leave a comment or question below.

Liked this article? Here are three more!

4 Things You Can Do to Dramatically Enhance Your Career
The Challenge and Importance of Inclusion at Work
The Important Benefits of Being Grateful at Work

Be a Force for Good

August 23, 2022 11 Comments

In the wake of some of the recent events in the world and in light of so much of what we’ve all been through the past few years, I’ve been finding it challenging to focus on the good stuff, even though this is at the core of my approach to life and what I teach.

As I’ve been looking at this more deeply, I realize that my commitment is not necessarily to be “positive,” but to be a force for good in the world, regardless of the circumstances.

When facing challenges, I think it’s important to ask ourselves, “who do I want to be in the face of these difficulties?”

Being a force for good doesn’t mean we have to be happy or always find the silver lining. It’s more about making a commitment to ourselves and to those around us that we’ll be part of the solution instead of simply commenting on or adding to the problems themselves.

Doing this allows us to overcome challenges and obstacles and turn problems into life lessons with positive outcomes.

When the issues we’re facing are geo-political, societal, or have to do with natural disasters (as has been the case in recent years), it can often seem overwhelming.

However, how we show up, communicate, and respond to what’s happening around us in the world can have a significant and positive impact when we commit to being a force for good.

How to be a Force for Good

Here are a few things we can do or think about in this regard right now:

1) Look for ways you can help.

Fred Rogers, one of my childhood heroes, famously said, “When I was a boy, and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’.”

He’s right – and I always try to remember this myself.

In addition to looking for the helpers (and appreciating and honoring them), we can all be helpers in both big and small ways.

Whether we donate money, make phone calls, post, or reach out and share our good thoughts and prayers, there are always ways to help.

And being of service not only helps those we assist directly, but it’s also a way to act as a force for good, no matter the situation.

2) Be proactive with your complaints.

There are two types of complaints – idle complaints (when we whine and moan about how bad things are) and proactive complaints (when we take issue with something and proactively bring it to the attention of those who can potentially do something about it).

An excellent example of this here in our country is contacting our elected representatives – at the national, state, and local level.

Whether we voted for them or not, they work for us. Picking up the phone, writing a letter, sending an email, or posting on social media directly to one of our elected representatives and letting them know how we feel about something specific is a way we can influence change and be proactive with our complaints.

Sitting around and talking about how awful something is, which is understandable and common, especially these days, doesn’t usually make things better. But proactive complaints can be the catalyst for positive and productive change in many situations.

3) Don’t get caught up in the drama.

Over the past few years, I’ve been getting caught up in the constant drama of the daily headlines and news. It’s easy to do, especially given all that has been happening in our country and our world.

However, this usually doesn’t feel great or allow us to be a real force for good. While I think many good journalists are doing essential and courageous work, the media as a whole is set up right now to get our attention and do whatever they can to have us watch, click, and then buy what they’re advertisers are selling.

The news often leads with shock, drama, fear, and outrage, since these things grab us emotionally and get our attention. We must be mindful of how we engage the news and the media.

This constant fear/drama cycle often leads us to feel upset, discouraged, or even depressed. Sometimes the best thing we can do is unplug and look for ways to help.

4) Speak up with authenticity.

There are lots of important things going on around us these days that are calling us to speak up.

Speaking up is an important thing to do. It takes a lot of courage and can be a specific way for us to be a force for good. However, we must be authentic when we speak up.

I define authenticity as honesty – self-righteousness + vulnerability.

It’s important to be honest, but we must also remove our self-righteousness and add vulnerability (emotional exposure, risk, and uncertainty).

We can have a real impact if we’re willing to speak up authentically.

5) Focus on gratitude.

During challenges and difficulties, it’s sometimes hard to focus on gratitude. But it’s also so essential for us to do.

When we see people suffering, we can honor and support them by both acknowledging their pain and at the same time being grateful for our own blessings.

Being grateful isn’t mutually exclusive with wanting to support and be of service to those who are in need. Even during challenging times, there is always so much we can appreciate.

Even though there have been a lot of challenges, pain, loss, and trauma in our country and our world recently, we always have a choice as to how we’re going to show up, what we’re going to do, and who we’re going to be in the face of all of this.

To paraphrase the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, “Circumstances don’t define us, they reveal us.”

Our friends, co-workers, teammates, family members, and the people in our communities benefit most when we show up as authentically as we possibly can and do our best to be a true force for good.

What can you do to be a force for good right now? Share your thoughts, feelings, and insights about this here below.

Mike Robbins is the author of five books, including his latest, We’re All in This Together: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, and Belonging. He’s a thought leader and sought-after speaker whose clients include Google, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Schwab, eBay, Genentech, the Oakland A’s, and many others.

Liked this article? Here are three more!

This article was published in 2017 and has been updated.

The Power of Forgiveness

May 23, 2022 Leave a Comment

The power of forgiveness is so important for our relationships, teams, and overall well-being. But it can be difficult, especially these days.

Resentment doesn’t serve us.

As the saying goes, “holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” We are the ones taking the poison in and somehow think it will impact the other person, but it usually doesn’t.

What can we do to release resentment and forgive the people around us?

We all hold onto those little subtle things that we don’t know how to address – things that create resentment in our lives and build up over time. These small things damage our relationships and trust. They impact our teams and culture.

We have to learn how to address these things, but first, we must understand why many of us find it so hard to forgive.

What Makes Forgiveness So Challenging?

Forgiveness is challenging for many reasons. Here are a few of them.

1. We aren’t taught forgiveness.

Most of us do not learn much about forgiveness as we grow up. We learn how to navigate relationships and conflicts, but we don’t learn how to forgive after getting let down, disappointed, or heartbroken.

If we did get any education around forgiveness, it was to ‘let it go.’ While there is good intention underneath that, it’s not always helpful or empowering.

2. We don’t like to forgive.

Let’s be honest, we sometimes like holding grudges and resentments. We get off on feeling morally superior to others and holding resentments.

And while holding on to grudges is not healthy, helpful, or pleasurable, there is something we get out of it. We think holding onto grudges allows us to get rid of some of the pain and negativity, but it doesn’t get to the root of it and doesn’t allow us to be free.

In addition to this, many of us don’t like to forgive because we use it as an excuse for why things aren’t working out in our lives. It’s easier to blame others or unfair circumstances, than it is to take responsibility for our lives.

3. Sometimes, we’re afraid to forgive.

Many of us are afraid to forgive because we worry that if we forgive a specific person or situation, we’re condoning their behavior and “letting them off the hook.”

We want people to be responsible and accountable for what they did, and if we forgive them, they somehow get a pass.

But this isn’t true. Forgiveness is for us – it’s about freeing us from the pain, stress, resentment, and negativity we carry about the person or situation.

Forgiving someone or letting go of resentment doesn’t mean that we’re saying that whatever a person did is okay. We choose to forgive that person because we don’t want to relive the pain of that situation over again anymore – we don’t want to carry around that resentment anymore because it’s harmful to us.

How Can We Embrace the Power of Forgiveness?

If you have trouble or challenges forgiving, you’re not alone. Everyone struggles with this to some degree or another. It’s challenging to authentically forgive.

So what can we do?

1. Let go.

Don’t run away to avoid it. Think about all the resentment you hold – big and small. Create a list in your journal or with your therapist of what you hold onto – the baggage you carry. List the biggest resentments to the smallest ones.

It’s very likely that you are ready to let go of many of your resentments. Do you really want to hang on to something that someone said or did years, maybe even decades ago?

I’m not minimizing certain situations or traumas. If you’re not ready to let go of certain things, that’s fine too.

But what are you willing to let go of?

Ultimately, it’s a choice. You choose what you want to hold on to and what you want to let go of.

2. Talk to the person directly.

Have what I call a “sweaty-palmed conversation.”

Having the conversation might be difficult and scary for you – and it might not always get resolved, but it’s a practical solution.

Most people feel much better after talking to someone they have an issue with or feel resentful towards – I certainly do.

And while having a conversation may make you feel better, it doesn’t mean that the situation is magically resolved. You may not feel better after talking to people depending on the issue or nature of the person – but it will often help.

3. Write them a note.

The note can be in the form of an email, text message, hand-written letter, etc. Communicate with the person with the intention of having a conversation or saying what you need to forgive and let go.

This is also something you can do to someone who has passed away or you no longer have communication with. If you cannot send the person the letter, just get all your feelings out.

4. Write an anger letter.

Write an anger letter knowing you’re not going to send it to the person. This letter is going to be for you. Vent on the page – get it all out of your head.

You can keep it for a few days and re-read it, but destroy it once you feel like you’ve gotten all your emotions out. It’s like a message to your subconscious – you get all your feelings out, and let go.

This is another exercise you can do if the person is no longer in your life and you have no other way of letting go of your feelings toward the person.

5. Talk to a proxy (or to yourself).

Voice dialoguing with another human is extremely helpful. It could be a coach, therapist, or friend.

That person will stand in for the person you hold resentment towards. Talk to that person as if they are the one you have the anger for.

It’s incredible what can happen when we do this because if we can get it out – get out all those emotions, feelings of anger and resentment – sometimes it helps us release our feelings of anger and resentment.

You can also create a voice note and have a conversation with the person you are trying to forgive. You won’t send it to them, but just like writing an angry letter, you’re letting it out. You’re releasing the emotions.

6. Practice meditation and visualization.

While meditating, try to visualize the person there. Imagine having a conversation with them about your feelings.

Visualization helps us remove negative emotions and focus our attention on positive things that can create change to our lives. Our minds cant differentiate between visualizing and what is real. That’s why visualization is such a crucial part of manifestation.

7. Pray and ask for guidance.

Whether you’re religious or not, ask for guidance. Ask for the universe to help you let go of your resentment and frustration.

Ultimately, the power of forgiveness comes from intention.

We can lighten our load and take some of the emotional rocks out of the bags we carry around, we can let go of the resentments that hold us back.

Forgiveness is a challenging but crucial aspect of our inner work. It is also a critical part of creating teams and relationships filled with authenticity and depth.

Forgiving Ourselves

The most challenging aspect of forgiveness is forgiving ourselves – forgiving ourselves for holding onto a grudge for so long.

Start with forgiving yourself. Do you forgive yourself for holding a grudge?

Forgiving yourself is the first step that will open up space to forgive other people.

What can you do right now to embrace the power of forgiveness? Feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, or questions in the comments below.

Liked this article? Here are three more!

The Challenge and Importance of Self-Care

April 13, 2022 2 Comments

It is so important for us to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually…especially these days.

Although we know this, it’s much easier said than done, isn’t it?

If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be spending so much time at home over the past two years, not traveling or speaking—I would have thought that I would be able to take care of myself really well – exercising, resting, meditating, etc.

That wasn’t the case for me for the first year and a half or so of Covid. How about you? Many people I know and work with have talked to me about challenges along these lines, particularly during the pandemic.

For me, it was and, at times, still is hard to get and stay motivated. It’s easy to get stuck in the monotony of things and also unhealthy patterns with respect to eating, sleeping, exercising—or lack thereof.

Whatever your current struggle may be with self-care, you’re not alone. It continues to be a challenging and stressful time for just about all of us.

How can we take better care of ourselves? And how do we do so in a more kind and compassionate way?

I have five ideas for what we can do to enhance our self-care in a healthy and effective way right now.

The Importance of Self-Care

Many of us struggle with our approach to self-care. And while self-care is essential, it can be tricky for several reasons.

Here are some things we can focus on and do to improve how we care for ourselves:

1. Awareness

Awareness is about being mindful and real about how we feel – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This awareness can be easier said than done, but it is the first step to caring for ourselves in a successful way.

Being authentic with ourselves is essential to our well-being on every level, and this starts with awareness.

2. Compassion

Have compassion for yourself. We’ve been through a lot and we continue to navigate an incredibly challenging time. All that has happened has disrupted how we operate and care for ourselves. If you are struggling, remember, you’re not the only one.

Sometimes it’s easier to have compassion for others than ourselves. Just remember…you’re not broken, flawed, or screwed up. You’re just human.

There are four steps we can follow when finding great compassion for ourselves and making positive changes:

Recognize (the pattern, thought, or behavior)
Acknowledge (what we’re feeling or doing and the impact it is having)
Forgive ourselves
Change

There’s nothing wrong with us if we’ve picked up some unhealthy habits over the past few years. Have compassion for yourself. And remember to always appreciate and love yourself.

3. Reach out for support

Having other people to talk to can be very helpful. People want to support us, and most of us are fortunate enough to have people in our lives who are there for us…especially if we’re willing to reach out and let them know we need support.

Have you ever noticed other people’s issues and challenges are way easier to address than our own? Even the most intense and complicated situations don’t seem nearly as complex when they are going on for other people…because we’re not emotionally attached to them in the same way we are with our own stuff.

The further away we are from the situation, the easier it is for us to have a healthy perspective on it. Many of our biggest issues are related to our own trauma or negative patterns.

It can be hard to confront our challenges authentically and effectively—but that’s why therapy and coaching can be so valuable. When a skilled person can help us look at our stuff from an outside perspective, they can often help us get out of our own way and move through things.

4. Take action

Take some thoughtful and intentional action, even if it’s small. You can journal, walk, meditate, stretch, or take a good old-fashioned break.

Don’t take action for the sake of action, but take intentional action. It might feel awkward at first, but taking action and getting into some kind of movement can make a big difference.

5. Accountability

A very practical and actionable way to overcome struggle or resistance is to have some kind of positive accountability. Accountability helps us move past blocks and stick to healthy habits, especially when they might be different or challenging.

Changing our behavior and trying new things can be scary—but having some accountability can help us take that first step…and then keep going.

Caring for ourselves is so important, particularly right now, and it can be really hard to do. Let’s be real about it and kind as we look to make some positive shifts and changes with our self-care.

What can you do to take care of yourself right now in a compassionate and effective way? Share your thoughts or questions below in the comments.

How Do You Forgive Yourself?

December 13, 2021 16 Comments

How do you forgive yourself, especially when you feel shame and regret about things you have done in the past?

Dealing with shame and regret isn’t easy. And forgiving yourself can be extremely difficult when you live in constant guilt and regret.

Many of us carry hard, hurtful emotions that build with us as time goes on.

One of these feelings – particularly for me – is resentment.

You can direct resentment towards other people, situations, or yourself.

When I first began on my journey of self-forgiveness, what I had to initially confront was how much resentment I had towards myself.

How To Forgive Yourself

Many of us are critical and unforgiving to ourselves. A lot of us don’t even trust ourselves.

And when we are so critical of ourselves, we start harboring resentment.

Forgiving yourself isn’t easy – it takes work. But it’s worth it.

I started forgiving myself by meditating, journaling, asking for help, and focusing on healing.

One specific exercise I did was to write down a long list of things that I wanted to forgive myself for:

being harsh and critical of some of the people closest to me,
being annoyed and unkind to our girls at times,
worrying about all kinds of superficial things,
being unable to overcome failure,
harming my body over the years,
not taking good care of myself,
making mistakes in my business and with our finances,
not practicing what I preached in my work,

And on and on the list went.

As I wrote these things down in my journal, I was initially concerned that it was my gremlin taking over and listing out all the things that were “wrong” with me and all the reasons why I was “bad.”

But as I allowed myself to engage more deeply in the process, I realized that what I was doing was telling the truth about all the things I’d been judging myself for.

Engaging in this process was my attempt in some way to let go of the resentment I was holding toward myself. I was trying to move into a place of forgiveness and, ultimately, freedom. And while I wasn’t sure if I knew exactly the “right” way to forgive myself, I decided to ask to be forgiven in my writings, prayers, and meditations.

Before I went to bed at night, I would ask for the weight of this self-criticism and negativity to lift off of me.

The Nature of Growth and Change

A few days after doing this self-reflection and self-forgiveness exercise, I felt 50 pounds lighter.

A few weeks later, I had my first session with my counselor Eleanor. As Eleanor and I began to work together, which we’ve continued to do over the past decade with wonderful results, she began to explain to me the nature of growth and change.

These are the basic steps involved in the process of growing and changing:

Recognize: You must recognize what’s going on and what you’re doing. Recognizing is about seeing and about authentic awareness.
Acknowledge: You must acknowledge the impact of what you’re doing with compassion and without judgment. Acknowledgment is about feeling your emotions and owning the impact.
Forgive: The most crucial step in the process is forgiveness—a willingness to forgive yourself. Self-forgiveness isn’t about letting yourself off the hook. It’s about caring enough to take a deeper level of responsibility. And when you do that, you’re able to forgive yourself authentically.
Change: If you genuinely recognize, acknowledge, and forgive, the change pretty much happens on its own. You don’t have to—nor do you get to—control it. Change is the result of authentic forgiveness, and genuine forgiveness is about releasing the past and all the stories you have associated with it.

Unfortunately, most of us actually recognize, acknowledge, punish, and repeat—instead of forgiving and changing—which keeps specific negative patterns in place in our lives and causes us a great deal of pain and suffering.

For real change to happen, we must constantly focus on forgiving ourselves and releasing the past and all of the stories connected to it.

Moving Forward with Self-Forgiveness

Given that most of us have many years of experience of not doing this and still tend to be hypercritical of ourselves, self-forgiveness can be challenging.

Forgiveness continues to be a challenge for me, although it’s getting easier. It’s a practice, and like any practice, the more we do it, the easier it is and the more effective we become.

The more willing we are to take an honest look within—recognize and acknowledge our self-sabotaging ways and forgive ourselves for them—the more likely we can begin to change in an authentic and powerful way.

Remember: we all make mistakes. And that’s okay. We all do things that we regret. Self-forgiveness makes it possible to forgive others and live our lives with a genuine sense of freedom, peace, and love.

This is a modified excerpt taken from my book Nothing Changes Until You Do, with permission from our publisher, Hay House. This book is available online or in bookstores. Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more here or in the comments section of this post.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

This article was originally published on April 30, 2014, and updated for 2021.