I’ve made many mistakes. They used to make me crazy. I’d think about what I’d done and how I’d done it and fantasize about moving time backward so I could fix it.

If only I hadn’t done that one little thing. Or, more likely, if only I hadn’t said that one thing.

Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning thinking it had been a dream. It hadn’t really happened. It was just something I imagined.

And then, I’d realize that it wasn’t a dream. I’d blown it. I’d actually made the mistake, and the mess was going to hang over me for another day.

But “EVERYONE makes mistakes. No one is perfect. Mistakes are inevitable.” We’ve been hearing that wisdom from friends, family, and teachers forever.

They’re not saying that making mistakes is okay. They’re not saying we can keep making them. They don’t mean that there aren’t real consequences of making mistakes.

But mistakes are going to happen because “everyone makes mistakes.”

All we can do when we make a mistake is do our best to correct things, apologize, and do better next time.

Yet, for decades, mistakes have been agonizing for me. It has been very hard for me to let them go.

But not anymore.

How to Move On From Your Mistakes

I finally get it. I finally believe it. I finally understand that when they say “EVERYONE makes mistakes,” that means me. It might even mean you too.

It’s better for me now. It’s easier.

Today, having absorbed the inevitability of my mistakes, I don’t dwell on them.

I don’t try to cover them up. I don’t hide them. It’s the cover-up that always is fatal. I fess up to them reluctantly, and I move on quickly.

The sooner you see the inevitability of your mistakes, the sooner you understand that it’s part of the process, and the sooner you can move forward.

I just wish I’d absorbed this lesson earlier.

Agonizing over your mistakes, relitigating them, dreaming about them, and thinking of the different paths you could have chosen is counterproductive. It slows you down, it locks you in place, and it keeps you from moving forward.

Mistakes are inevitable. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s time for you to move on.