Recovering From A Bad Decision

There is no doubt that we are our worst judges. When we make a mistake, it can take years for us to truly forgive ourselves for it.

When making a bad decision, the consequence will be echoing in our mind for a long time, if we do not let it go, if we do not let go of it and above all, if we do not forgive ourselves.  On the contrary, good decisions are those that we forget most quickly.

Why is it that the human mind works this way? Perhaps because society has instilled in us from a young age that mistakes pay dearly, or that a good decision is what is expected of us.

However, thanks to bad decisions we also learn. To what? In the first place, not to make mistakes again or to realize the negative consequences that we have caused.

Pay attention to this short story that portrays a bit what we have said before:

“An employee comes to his boss’s office and asks,” How have you managed to be successful? ”

The boss responds: “thanks to the good decisions.”

Not satisfied with the answer, the worker asks him again: “How could you make the right decisions?”

“Due to experience,” indicates the employer.

Before sounding a bit insistent, the employee asks him: “And how was it possible to acquire that experience?”

To which the boss says: “For the bad decisions” “

What is this story trying to explain? Well, basically, if we don’t make the wrong decisions, it is very difficult for us to make the right ones.

We all make mistakes or think something is good when it really isn’t. But the difference between knowing how to take advantage of those bad decisions or not is how we survive them. This means that we can choose to move on and remember what we did wrong so as not to repeat it, or that that mistake haunts us for the rest of our lives and does not allow us to move forward.

It is vital to remember that bad decisions are part of our learning as we walk the path of our existence. It is up to us to take them as if they were a teaching or a great weight on our shoulders.

Once we have made a bad decision we can act in different ways. For example, regret and change, regret and do nothing to change it, forget about the issue, get upset, blame us for how bad we act, etc.

Now, what is the best position we can adopt? Without a doubt, the same as the boss in the story you read above, that is, knowing that with bad decisions you learn and forge experience. Which leads, without a doubt, to success.

Everything seems very simple in theory, but what do we do in practice? First of all, it  is vital to manage the whirlwind of emotions that we will surely feel, from anger to sadness, through indifference to depression.

Reassuring ourselves is very important. Recruiting ourselves all the time for what we did wrong won’t help at all. On the contrary, being very clear about where we went wrong so as not to repeat it is the most useful thing at this time.

Something that happens frequently when making a bad decision is that the voices of the mind do not stop even for a second, we cannot concentrate on what we are doing, nor sleep at night. “Why did you do it?”, How could you have acted that way? “,” What would have happened if …? It’s what they say over and over in our minds.

Let’s not let that internal conversation take over our daily life and above all, the next decisions we make.

Let’s stop punishing ourselves , we can’t go back, although many times we think it would be perfect. The best thing to do at this time is to analyze how we can repair the damage and, above all, how we can get out of the situation successfully.

This is how we enter the third stage or step on the road to forgiving ourselves for our bad decisions. We need to assess the extent of the damages for our mistake. To do this, we must keep our minds as cool as possible, because any emotional imbalance can make us make new wrong decisions or not determine with certainty the consequences of what we have done.

And lastly (and most importantly), learn from our mistake. It should be remembered that ” a bad decision is only bad if we do nothing about it and if it does not leave us a lesson . “