Your Mistakes Don't Have To Define You - Unless You Let Them
Everyone makes mistakes - it's what you do after you make them that matters. Mistakes can sink you or help you get to the next level. Which one happens all depends on you.
Everyone makes mistakes - literally everyone - but not all mistakes are necessarily public mistakes. When you make a very public mistake, it can seem like the whole world is against you, but your mistakes don’t have to define you. Although it may seem like it’s better to make a mistake in private, where no one can see it, that’s actually not always the case. The mistakes we make in private become all too easy to sweep under the rug and simply pretend they never happened. Without acknowledging our mistakes or having them found out, we tend to just go right on making them. Only they generally just get bigger and bigger.
No one just wakes up one day and has an affair and no one just suddenly wakes up one day and embezzles millions of dollars. They usually spend months testing the waters, pressing and stretching and bending closer and closer to the line until one day, they finally shoot across it. Once across, it is hard to get back. Sometimes, no one around you realizes you’ve crossed it. When that happens, it just becomes easier and easier to live on the other side of the line.
But the truth always comes out. Those things you hide away in secret will always come flying out of the closet eventually. And the longer they’ve been in there, the larger they tend to be when they come out.
When people openly acknowledge their mistakes and take actions to course correct, those mistakes tend to be blips. When they don’t acknowledge them, however, they tend to just go right on making them until eventually, they all come out at once. When that happens, it’s not a blip but a freaking train wreck.
You can make sure you don’t end up a 15-car pileup on the interstate by making sure you have people in your life that you can be honest with and who will hold you accountable. Alcoholics Anonymous has been helping millions of people for nearly 100 years now by creating a space where people can openly share their darkest moments and be surrounded by others who share many of those same experiences. Together, they help hold each other accountable. While we may not all need to be in AA, there are certainly things we can learn from what helps keep alcoholics from drinking.
There was a time when church members held each other accountable but the rise in megachurches and the 'corporatification' of The Church has laid waste to the practice of mutual accountability in the church. That being said, you will always find what you need if you make it enough of a priority. While it may not be easy to find accountability partners, if you understand the value of accountability, you will certainly make it happen.
No matter how it may seem, it’s never too late to make a fresh start. Your mistakes don’t have to define you, unless you let them.
“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins, but by how they can recover when they fall.” - Serena Williams