On the Skill of Letting Go of Past Mistakes

On any project, it happens that one side — and sometimes everyone in turn — slips up or makes a mistake. Not always out of incompetence, and even less often out of some deliberate wish to do the work harm. We’re all human, none of us is perfect, and we’re wired to err. Now and then those slips cost us a deadline, or bring other consequences nobody wanted.

How often I see that, right up until such a project is finished, the parties can’t stop circling back to those mistakes — the endless blame, the lines like: “Well, if you hadn’t done that back then… everything would be fine now.” Because now any shortcoming of your own can be pinned on that one old mistake of a colleague. A perfect excuse!

But what’s the goal? To finish the project and hit good numbers — or to sink it, find the guilty party, line up a justification, and hand off responsibility?

What happened has already happened. What’s the point of going back to it again and again, pointing fingers at each other?

We’d do better to let the past go and think about what can be done now, in the situation we’re already in. It won’t change, however much we wish it would, however strong the urge to blame anyone but ourselves.

Yes, at times we feel a deep injustice and a real reluctance to simply forgive and forget — but how does that help the work? How does it improve our personal relationships with people we may well have to keep working alongside?

And besides, it often happens that a person has already realized their mistake, and their inner censor has punished them harder than any outside critic could. When you keep “finishing them off” from the outside, all you get is irritation and recoil. This has happened to me more than once — has it happened to you?

Let’s imagine the past is gone. We’re only here and now. From this point, what can we do that brings the best result? How can we join forces with our colleagues and partners to reach our goal? How can we support each other and share in a common win?

We’re talking about a business project, but all of this holds for our main project too — our life. How often do we blame ourselves for what can no longer be changed?

Here’s to the skill of letting go of past mistakes — our own and others’! 😎