Although we have talked about mistakes, appreciating them and making them fast all along in this site, something we wanted to talk about was how the mistakes affect people related to us and more importantly what we do about them. I mean we are sorry that we did it but what do we do after we feel sorry?
1) Figure out what went wrong
Of course we try to find the root cause, identify what exactly led to the problem whether it was miscommunication, over communication, over reaction, misunderstanding. What was it actually that led to this?
2) Accept your mistake
It doesn’t matter most times as to who is wrong, something we all realize at certain points is that the person is more important than the mistake. See how bad the mistake is, own it up, take responsibility and identify how you can find the smoothest way out without hurting your counterpart
3) Understand the situation
An apology if not heartfelt is absolutely meaningless. It is better not to say anything at all than fake it. And an apology need not mean that you have to say sorry, it may simply mean that you acknowledge the happening and you also acknowledge the idea as to how it was perceived by your counterpart and how you propose to sort it. More than an apology, I would want to find a way so that something in a similar manner doesn’t happen again.
4) Say you’re sorry!
Sometimes you’d just have to own it, realize that you have made a mistake and say that S word no matter how much you’d hate to. I agree it hurts the ego, it hurts a little bit of your self respect as well. But it makes you bigger, it erases the thin line between self respect and Ego!
5) Look into the person’s eye
Well I know sometimes we feel a little ashamed to look into someone’s eyes, esp if that someone is a person you have wronged. But look into their eyes anyway, the idea is not to make you feel uncomfortable, not to make you feel bad about yourself, it is to convey to your counterpart as to how honest you are and how much of it you mean.
6) Smile about it.
Don’t laugh, smile at your foolishness, make your counterpart realize how silly you feel about the entire thing, have a good sense of humour about it. Humour certainly softens the blow, both on you and your counterpart
7) Talk about the big picture
Talk about what you really meant and tell why it was wrong. Talk about the bigger picture as to what they are as a person to you, what they mean to you and how important they are to you. Most times the hurt is not about a situation but the perception of a situation. Most times something happens it sends an unconscious message to the person as to what you think about them. Address the bigger picture over the finer ones.
8) Express gratitude
The other person needn’t have listened to your apology, it was your mistake and they suffered because of it. Infact it was their good nature that you got a second chance. Doesn’t that deserve an appreciation? What better way than to say thanks and for how to say thanks, well I think the more creative you are, the better chances you have :)
8) Appreciate yourself for apologizing
An apology never shows how weak you are. Contrarily, it tells how strong you are and it also says that you have grown over that pettiness of a mistake and hanging on to it and moved on to being a better person from it. That shows maturity and also shows your true character. You need to appreciate that, cos the only way to condition your best behaviour is to support yourself at it. What better way than appreciation
All in all, we believe most of the emotions happen as a signal, as a message to us. None of us are going to be perfect, we don’t even recommend that, but something we strongly recommend is to bring out your true self in most occasions, acknowledge the importance of your personality and find ways to retain it for at the end of the day, that is all you have!
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with most people fumbling at step one, i totally see why its important to apologize the right way. theres no moving ahead if we dont apologize and even out a fight or a misunderstanding the right way! needs extremely sensitive thinking ! beautiful article!:)
Thankoo Preethi :).. I agree, it certainly is not an easy thing to do, but like you said, there is no moving ahead either.. It does play a vital role in setting things in proper structure :)
well, since i never find it hard to apologize i have never thought of all these things..!! well thought up as always :) me being the skeptic i am..lol…my thoughts after reading this post went this way…apology is one thing…accepting it is another. i have seen people say “its ok”…just to brush off the conversation…and the other extreme…use the opportunity to bombard the person who is apologizing with every single thing they have ever wanted to say to them at every instance. Leaving the other person feel terrible. They use the opportunity to not be..but look the bigger person. If saying sorry made you feel any better…they will make sure you don’t get that satisfaction. If we don’t like something that happened to us…surely we don’t want that to happen to anyone else? we would not do that…right? i do feel that way.
He he, I have always found it a little hard to apologize. I blame the typical arien Ego :P.
I very much agree, tending an apology is one thing and accepting is totally another. I guess that shows the amount of maturity in the person receiving it. If he/she proves to be an idiot all through the process, then they deserve a diluted form of the apology, not our mistake :P. I guess sometimes a Sorry might be a way to acknowledge a mistake and try to rectify it, while in some other cases when it comes to an apology for an unreasonable person, we just have to do it for our self satisfaction if need be..
How to apologize? http://t.co/8oMR9VcS2X