Letting go of mistakes
Once upon a time, I trained in the martial arts. When I was a brown belt, I hit someone pretty hard and broke his rib. We were supposed to demonstrate excellent physical control, and accidentally breaking someone’s rib does not equal excellent physical control. I felt terrible for causing him pain and for not having the control I should have had.
Now, obviously, if you are going to be sparring with people, you have to accept that sometimes accidents will happen, but this particular situation really messed with my head. I became very tentative and doubtful. This was especially problematic because I was training for my black belt test, and “tentative and doubtful” were not traits the examiners would be looking for in black belt candidates.
So, I could have given up in a spate of self-recrimination. That would have been “safe”: I would never have to risk causing another injury like that. I could just have said this wasn’t for me and gone on with my life. And there really wouldn’t have been anything wrong with that.
But I’m very glad I didn’t. With the help of some good friends, I worked through my reservations and went on to become a martial arts instructor, and then to write a dozen books about the martial arts. It was the catalyst that pushed me to become a writer, then an editor, and now an editing instructor.
Don’t Let Fear of Mistakes Stop You
I’m telling this story because a lot of newer editors freeze up if they make a mistake. They feel like they’ve thrown away their shot. They screwed up and it’s over.
Look, it’s better not to do stupid things in your freelancing business, but if it’s any consolation, I’ve screwed up in ways you haven’t even dreamed up yet. And it has turned out just fine.
It’s important to try your best, but you don’t have to be perfect. I surely am not. I’m occasionally impatient and brusque; relatedly, I am sometimes not the right instructor for someone. When I screw up, I try to make a good apology and not one of those blame-shifting ones. I try to make the amends that are indicated. I learn what I can, put in guardrails if I need (“do not answer emails after 5 pm, you always sound annoyed”) and then (and this is important!): I MOVE ON.
The thing is, screwing up is like . . . breaking a glass. You broke the glass. You can’t unbreak the glass. You can and should apologize for breaking the glass, sweep up the fragments, and bring a new one, and you can learn something from it (“do not try to carry four glasses at once”) but you can’t unbreak the glass.
This is not meant to terrify you into never doing anything that might mean you would make a mistake. It’s intended to say that you have to accept that you will make mistakes, and feel terrible about them, but you can’t get stuck there. Keep moving forward, keeping doing, and don’t let screwing up stop you from reaching your goals.
“You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need any more of that sound” – Mary Oliver, “The Poet with His Face in His Hands”
