You blew it. Skrewed up. Fumbled. Checked out. Had a Senior Moment. Temporarily lost your mind.
These are just some of the many phrases that may pop into your head when you have made a mistake.
What do you do when you really lay an egg. How you handle making a mistake can dictate your level of success in every aspect of your life.
There are several ways that people react when they blow it big time.
The first type is the "Drama Queen". This person sits around, wasting time complaining about the mistake that was made and all the terrible things that will happen as a result. Everything gets blown completely out of proportion and the world is coming to an end.
The next type is the "I'm a Terrible Person" type. This person believes and feels that the reason this mistake happened was because he was a terrible person and somehow he deserved what happened. Like he is a mistake magnet.
The next type is the "Conspiracy Theory" type. It was so-and-so's fault. The Devil made me do it. It wasn't me; I was on the moon at the time...and on and on. This type of person cannot acknowledge or accept the fact that he blew it.
So what do you do.
You accept and acknowledge the mistake. The worse lies that we tell are the ones we tell ourselves, so don't pretend it didn't happen or ignore it.
Accept it. Embrace it. Take it in your hands, rub it in your face and say, "Yeah baby...I blew it. Nice one."
You can get mad, but laugh at yourself also. Look yourself in the mirror and say, "Nice job. You really laid an egg on that one."
Then, start thinking about solutions. How do you turn this into your advantage. If you can't turn it into an advantage, how can you minimize the fallout. Can you keep the negatives from being as much as they could be.
And lastly, what can you learn from this. What was your thinking, your beliefs and actions. What steps did you take to make the mistake that you did and how do you not repeat that mistake in the future.
In Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I, which is at http://www.shaolinsecrets.com, there are passages where the Masters write about using your opponent's energy against him; how to move from a position of weakness and then turn that position into a position of strength.
Sometimes when you are sparring or training, you'll get blasted. You'll eat a front kick or suck up a right cross. Do you tense your body, kiai and take it or do you roll with it and use that energy for your next movement.
I was sparring with a guy once who had wicked sweeps and leg kicks. I had happy feet the whole time I was fighting him because I was aware of his feet.
He caught me anyway. He hit me with a low leg sweep/kick that hit me so hard it spun me around.
As I was coming around after getting hit, I knew he would be following with his hands so I did the only thing I could think of...
I threw a spinning hook kick as my body came back around and nailed him in the back of his head. I hit him at the base of his neck and put him on his face.
Which was lucky for me because I could barely walk after that stinkin' leg kick he hit me with.
If you think about it, that's what you do when you train. You perform a technique or piece of footwork. You get a result. If it's the result you want, you make sure that you do it that way every time.
If it isn't the result you want, then you stop, figure out what you did that wasn't quite right, adjust and try again.
When you make a mistake, go with it. Admit you blew it, look to see why, take action to fix it, learn and move on.
Best,
William Huff
P.S. - Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement for a teleseminar on Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I, Volume II and our upcoming DVD series.
P.S.S - If you haven't gotten your copy of Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I yet, get over to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com and get yours before this teleseminar so you can get the most out of the teleseminar.