5 ways to recover from career mistakes

A mistake isn’t the end of the world — or career. “Multiple failures lead to a perception which is the basis of further failures — and that is, ‘you can’t succeed’,” says Raj Raghavan, country HR leader, Amazon India. It’s important then, to pick yourself up after a failure or mistake.
1) Stop the Negativity Loop

Never perceive your failures as permanent. Avoid getting into a negative perception about yourself. If you have achieved as much as you have and reached where you are, there is no reason to think you are incapable.

2) Try to Stem the Loss

Don’t let emotion come in the way and think of how you can stop the loss objectively. “Do everything you can to undo or minimise the impact of your action rather than feeling bad about it and worrying about what people are saying,” says Saugata Gupta, CEO of Marico.

3) Learn to Move On

If it’s a single failure, take it as one and move on. “Think about what caused the mistake. Make a list of specific things that led to it — your frame of mind, lack of preparedness or sleep — whatever it is. Check off the things when you take up the task again or pick up a new one,” says Raghavan.

4) Revisit your Successes

Recharge yourself by living through your successes. Remember how you felt when you succeeded, think about how you went about completing the task, working and preparing for the project. It will help you get back your confidence, adds Raghavan.

5) Be Ready to Learn

Be open to learning new things. If you are experimentative, you will make mistakes, but you can always bounce back. Gupta talks about how Marico test-marketed a healthy snack a few years ago and it flopped, but they learnt from their mistakes and relaunched the product. It eventually became a hit. “One needs to be more open towards absorbing new things, from within and outside the organisation,” suggests Gupta.