On high standards, human mistakes, and learning to extend a little more grace.
Well, apparently the universe decided I needed a little lesson in humility this week. And I have to admit, it had a pretty good sense of humor about delivering it.
I've been working diligently at the wellness studio where I work part-time, catching up on follow-up calls to prospective clients and those who came in for an initial visit but never returned.
I'm a big believer in following through. Always have been.
Years ago, when I owned and operated a law firm, I drilled into my employees the importance of documenting EVERY client communication and scheduling the next follow-up. If you told someone you'd call them on Tuesday, you'd better call them on Tuesday. Not Wednesday. Not whenever you happened to remember.
It's about accountability, professionalism, and respecting other people's time.
So imagine my surprise when I called an 82-year-old woman this week who proceeded to give me a well-deserved tongue-lashing.
Apparently, I'd promised to call her back several weeks earlier and never did.
Wait. What?
This was so unlike me. I apologized profusely, acknowledged that she had every right to be upset, and assured her that this wasn't how we wanted to treat our clients.
Thankfully, after a little conversation, she softened. By the time we hung up, she'd agreed to give our studio another chance.
Whew.
But I was still baffled.
I went back through my notes, and sure enough, there was my promise to call her in a few days. No subsequent communication documented.
Then I checked my task list.
And there it was.
The follow-up task I'd created for myself, scheduled for exactly when I'd promised to call her.
Marked COMPLETE.
What in the world?!
I have absolutely no idea how that task was marked completed without making the call. Did I get distracted? Confuse it with another task? Somehow convince myself I'd already done it?
Your guess is as good as mine.
But one thing was certain. I'd dropped the ball.
And the irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, someone who has spent years preaching the importance of following through, guilty of the very thing that drives me crazy when other people do it.
I could almost hear the universe chuckling.
A Mistake I've Never Forgotten
This experience reminded me of something that happened early in my legal career.
I was responsible for filing a legal brief by a particular deadline. Somehow, I'd miscounted the days and missed it. For anyone unfamiliar with the legal profession, missing a filing deadline can be a very big deal.
When I realized what I'd done, I felt sick. Not only had I potentially jeopardized a client's case, but I was also terrified I might lose my job.
I immediately went to my boss and told him what had happened. I wasn't about to hide it or make excuses, but I certainly wasn't looking forward to that conversation.
And I'll never forget his response.
He was remarkably calm. "We all make mistakes," he told me.
That was it. No berating me, questioning my competence, or making me feel any worse than I already did. Just an acknowledgment that I was human and humans sometimes screw up.
I subsequently called the client to explain what had happened, and thankfully, he was understanding as well. I remember feeling enormous relief. I still had my job, and there were no malpractice claims coming my way!
Believe me, I never made that particular mistake again.
But here's what's interesting. Decades later, I still remember my boss's response more vividly than the mistake itself.
The Grace That Stayed With Me
As my career progressed and I eventually became responsible for managing my own employees, I often thought about that experience. I knew what it felt like to make a mistake, recognize the potential consequences, and dread having to tell someone.
And I remembered how much my boss's response had meant to me.
I tried to extend that same grace to my employees when they screwed up. That didn't mean mistakes were inconsequential or that accountability didn't matter. I still expected people to take responsibility, learn from their mistakes, and make an effort not to repeat them.
But I also understood that making someone feel terrible about something they already regretted rarely accomplished anything productive.
My boss hadn't needed to shame me into taking responsibility. I'd already done that myself. What he gave me was room to acknowledge my mistake, learn from it, and move forward.
Without necessarily realizing it at the time, he taught me something about leadership that stayed with me throughout my career.
You can hold someone accountable without making them feel small.
When Our Own Standards Come Back to Bite Us
Now, back to my 82-year-old client.
Unlike my former boss, she wasn't particularly interested in extending grace, at least not initially. And you know what? That was okay. She was disappointed, and rightfully so. I'd made a commitment and failed to honor it.
I wasn't defensive or angry with her for chastising me. I wasn't even beating myself up over it. I was mostly just baffled that I'd somehow managed to do something so inconsistent with my usual behavior.
But afterward, I found myself laughing at the irony. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.
You see, I have pretty high standards for myself. I value reliability, accountability, and doing what you say you're going to do. And if I'm being truthful, I sometimes get frustrated when other people don't live up to those same standards.
I might think, “Seriously? How hard is it to just follow through?”
Well, apparently, sometimes harder than I think!
Because there I was, with my carefully documented notes, scheduled follow-up task, and years of experience managing client relationships. And I STILL managed to screw it up.
Talk about a humbling reminder.
Maybe There's More to the Story
Here's what I've been thinking about since that phone call.
When I make a mistake, I know the circumstances surrounding it. I know my intentions, how seriously I take my responsibilities, and that one missed follow-up call isn't representative of how I normally conduct myself. Even though I still can't explain that mysteriously completed task, I know I didn't intentionally disregard my commitment.
But when someone else disappoints me, I don't necessarily know any of those things. I only see the missed commitment, the unanswered message, or the thing that didn't get done.
And sometimes, without even realizing it, I might make assumptions about what that says about the person. Maybe they're careless. Maybe they're unreliable. Maybe they just don't care.
But what if they're simply human? What if they're every bit as conscientious as I am, and something just slipped through the cracks?
That doesn't mean I should abandon my expectations or excuse repeated irresponsibility. There's a difference between an occasional mistake and a pattern of behavior. But perhaps I could approach those occasional disappointments with a little more curiosity and a little less judgment.
After all, I certainly appreciate it when someone extends that courtesy to me.
Accountability and Grace Can Coexist
I think that's the distinction worth remembering. Extending grace doesn't mean letting people off the hook, and holding someone accountable doesn't require making them feel terrible.
My boss didn't tell me that missing a legal deadline was no big deal. He simply recognized that I'd made a mistake and that making me feel worse wasn't going to change what had happened.
Likewise, my client's frustration was entirely justified. She deserved an apology and a sincere effort to make things right. And that's what I tried to give her.
We can expect people to honor their commitments without assuming every failure reflects a character flaw. We can acknowledge our own shortcomings without allowing them to define us.
Maybe grace isn't about pretending mistakes don't matter. It's about remembering that people matter, too.
A Little More Ease, A Little Less Judgment
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about moving through life with greater ease, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. And I'm beginning to recognize how much energy we can spend getting frustrated when things don't happen the way we think they should.
There's nothing wrong with having high standards. I certainly don't intend to abandon mine. But perhaps there's a little more ease to be found in accepting that even our best intentions don't guarantee flawless execution.
Sometimes people disappoint us. Sometimes we disappoint ourselves. And sometimes, despite our best systems and most conscientious efforts, we check off a task that apparently never got done!
What matters is how we respond. Do we own our mistakes, make an effort to repair the damage, and learn something? And when someone else falls short, can we offer them a little of the same understanding we'd hope to receive?
I still think about the grace my boss extended to me all those years ago. His response influenced how I treated my own employees for decades afterward. That's quite a legacy for what probably seemed to him like an ordinary conversation.
And maybe that's the bigger lesson here. We never really know how our response to someone else's mistake might influence the way they treat others.
As for my recent experience? Well, the universe apparently decided I needed a reminder that even the person preaching accountability occasionally needs a lesson in humility.
Message received.
Now, if I could just figure out why the heck I checked off that task...
Have you ever found yourself falling short of the very standards you hold others to? I'd love to hear what the experience taught you about accountability, humility, or extending a little more grace. You can contact me here.
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