While all of us make mistakes – all of us have the opportunity when we do make a mistake to deal with our mistake in a fair way. Our initial reaction to making a mistake might be to be worried about getting in trouble. At Balanced Life Skills we do not worry about getting in trouble. We want to do the right thing – because it is the right thing to do.
So when we make a mistake we are willing to take the responsibility for the mistake. It would not be fair to lie about what really happen or what we may have done wrong. Worse than that would be to put the blame on others. How unfair to blame another person for the mistake that we have made. Very close to blaming others would be to make an excuse as to why we did what we did. Either way we are refusing to take the responsibility.
Our reaction when making a mistake will always be to take the 3 step process, no matter if it is a drink that we spilled or if we said words that hurt the feelings of others. Here is the process that we teach at Balanced Life Skills:
- Admit we made the mistake. Recognize exactly what we did that was wrong.
- Apologize in the correct way, by saying, “I am sorry”. We will not use a flippant “sorry”.
- Fix it. We will do everything we can to make the wrong right, and hope for forgiveness.
Reminding our students of these steps will help them to exercise ‘fairness’ in all that they think, say and do.