Do this the next time you are mistaken, at fault or wrong
There are many excellent reasons for getting things a little bit wrong. We are busy, stressed, moving way too fast and we have way too many important things to do. Who can blame us if we misquote a price to a client, double-book ourselves or forget a critical detail on a contract? Whoops!
So why not just apologize?
Our culture perceives apology as a weakness. And sometimes we are just so embarrassed that we don’t want to think about what we did. But sometimes we don’t apologize in hopes that the person simply forgot about our error or did not notice. Why bring it up if they might not even have noticed it? A detail like that has the potential to kill the deal or cause friction in the relationship, so why risk it if it hasn’t come up, right? Wrong!
This is a test, only a test
Not only should you apologize for your mistake but you should make a point of bringing it out into the open even if you have reason to believe the person has not noticed. Doing so communicates that you are a person who can be trusted-even when you make a mistake. There is a good chance the person did notice the error, and if so, your motives could come into question. If they did not notice, but find out later, it can cause a much larger concern in the relationship than if you had owned up to it in the first place. So take the bullet and own up to your error. Most likely, everything will be just fine.
“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.'” Charles Shultz
