As an executive coach, I work with clients discussing their role in taking ownership and accountability of their teams, their team’s mistakes, and their own leadership mistakes. They support their teams by owning the work and being accountable for the quality, timelines, and the finished product. But what happens when the work doesn’t finish on time, isn’t quality, or goes beyond the scope of work?
What happens when this is repeated and becomes frustrating?
Often, you have conversations and share aspirations.
Often, the emotion of the moment doesn’t leave us.
It remains in our memory and in our bodies.
So how can you move forward?
The other day I had a conversation with a client about closure. Closure doesn’t really happen until we process “The Why”. Emotions must be considered and processed. You must be able to release what has happened and see repeatable supportive team behavior for trust to rebuild.
Sometimes, teams, individuals or peers do not take ownership. We find ourselves adrift in the moment and upset. We may need to offer forgiveness so that you can free yourself. Forgiveness comes from Old English and means “to completely grant” or “grant fully.” Several authors have written books with an outward focus on forgiveness. How do we forgive others when they have wronged us personally or professionally? How do we forgive leaders or teammates? How do we move on in an organizational culture or professional relationship that doesn’t own up? How do we increase our emotional self-awareness?
For my clients, I’m more interested in how you forgive your own mistakes. What happens when you stop long enough to connect and take an accurate inventory of how you’ve acted or the choices you’ve made for your career trajectory? How have your actions affected others in your company or even your family?
We are whole beings with emotions and feelings – not just brains walking into the office. We bring personal and professional life experiences into each meeting, unspoken and unacknowledged. Our somatic experiences enter every conversation and interaction. It may be time to ask how these experiences are impacting your professional career or personal happiness?
You need to be conscious of how the past continues to affect your current or future choices. It can affect whether you feel confident or competent. It can affect whether you step forward for the new role or make different job choices.
When individuals describe how they reached leadership positions in their company or how they chose career over family, they talk about lacking self-awareness or awareness of others. It is extremely important to always be improving your self-awareness: both internal self-awareness and external self-awareness. They acknowledge that they left others in their wake and sometimes multiple spouses. It can take years for their actions to catch up with them emotionally, and when they do, leaders don’t always know how to process nor deal with them.
We need to be able to forgive ourselves. Neuroscience has shown that forgiveness activates the prefrontal cortex in your brain, allowing you to make better decisions, regulate your emotional responses and access your empathy for others.
If choosing forgiveness for others and their past actions is vital for your mental and physical health, it’s also crucial to receive it personally. Forgiving can improve your well-being by reducing stress and enhancing positive emotions such as gratitude and happiness.
Forgiveness, whether for oneself or others, is a complex and deeply personal process. It involves acknowledging the pain caused, taking responsibility for one’s actions, and finding a way to let go and move forward. Here are some steps that can help in the process of forgiving oneself for personal and professional mistakes.
5 Steps to Practice Forgiving Oneself
- Acknowledge the mistake(s). These may be things that you have never shared with anyone. You have held them for years, and they continue to surface. When you acknowledge them as mistakes, they no longer have power in your energetic field or life. You can live differently by having an open and honest conversation with yourself – thanking yourself for learning from the experience or past choice – and befriending it as empowering. You can’t eliminate the experience – you can learn from it and choose another path.
- Understand the Context. Now that you have space, possibly years, from a situation, you will better understand “The Why.” The more you are aware of your Whys, the more you will move with awareness around others. You will understand what contributed to your choice. This awareness supports how you are with yourself and who you are around others.
- Practice Empathy.What is it like to give yourself empathy? This doesn’t mean that you are discounting past choices – this means that you have a clear picture of the catalyst for your action. When you give yourself empathy, you can then step into intentional self-forgiveness. You will release the negative emotions and step toward a positive resolution. Lead with empathy.
- Focus on Solution.This takes you to the prefrontal cortex and releases serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin endorphins in your body. You can step out of the amygdala hijack and into forward movement. You are no longer defining yourself by your past actions but choosing who and what you want to be. You are visioning for your life, both personally and professionally.
- Let Go.Embrace the vision of moving forward. You acknowledge out loud to yourself; you understand the Why; you offer yourself compassion and empathy; you envision moving forward in a new way and let go of the mistake(s) to create a new direction. Commit to a path of growth, improvement, and accountability.
Forgiveness of self affects how you move through the world and how you show up for yourself matters! It’s important to acknowledge – forgive, and let go of your failings so that you move along your path with freedom. You move on from the past when you understand the context and the choices, decisions, and actions you took. Now you can acknowledge the learning and process the accompanying emotions. Let’s embrace forgiving ourselves and move forward more empowered to live the personal and professional life we desire and deserve.
Robin Miller, PhD is an Executive and Leadership Communication Coach. She specializes in executive communication using the Advanced 360LiC Assessment and leadership team interpersonal communication.
