In a wonderful James Thurber cartoon from many years ago, there’s a depiction of a man angrily yelling into his telephone, “Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?” It’s a funny take on how we tend to get angry at others when we make a mistake.
Here are three things you can do when you make a mistake to both acknowledge the correct source and ensure it doesn’t happen again:
- Acknowledge the mistake: Recognize what happened. Even doing that can help you avoid overreacting in the moment. Also, make sure you don’t blame yourself too much.
- Figure out the root cause of the problem: In the case of dialing the wrong number, it wasn’t the other person answering the phone—it was the first person entering it incorrectly.
- Have a plan to prevent it from happening again: For example, if you tend to leave the house without your keys, putting them on a hook by the front door with a reminder sign is a helpful solution.
Doing these things doesn’t guarantee you won’t make the same mistake twice, but it can certainly help avoid it in the future.