I messed up this week. I guess we all do it once in a while. And I just did. I'm posting the comment here so that ... just to be clear ... you get that I get that in the end, we're all just human.
Someone in my world made a careless mistake. Was it intentionally wasteful and disrespectful? Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is it looked that way to me at the time. And these are, unfortunately, two very sensitive issues for me. The careless actions were essentially "against" nearly everything that I'm "for."
How did I respond?
I lost my temper. Spoke in a harsh and accusatory tone to the person. To be honest, I cannot ever recall being quite that angry. Ever.
And then ... later on ... I realized that the careless actions must have triggered something "extra" on my end. Although the person's actions were indeed out of line, so was my reaction. Further, I took it as though my perception was accurate, which may or may not have been the case, and reacted before I asked questions.
Basically, I was caught off-guard by something that, despite my years of training, I had not identified in the past and was not prepared for.
I recognized that my reaction was excessive.
And then what did I do next?
I apologized for losing my temper. In a timely manner.
I'm still not too thrilled with the person's actions. I had hoped for a lot more in the situation that appears to be turning out. But I also know there would have been better ways to handle things than the automatic emotional response that came forward at the time.
What to do when you mess up?
Acknowledge it and apologize. It may not exactly make things rosy again, but it is a step in the right direction.
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