Children learn pretty early on that owning up to their mistakes can land them in a whole heap of trouble.
As such children learn to lie or simply pretend that nothing happened.
Being an only child my parents often looked at me when something was found broken in our house.
It became so ingrained in me that in high school that when my parents said, “Adrian!!” I answered, “It wasn’t me.”
I had learnt that denial was the best policy.
Then one day my father told me something that I’ve never forgotten.
He was in a meeting and the head honcho asked my father why something hadn’t gotten done.
All eyes at the table turned to my father.
He looked his boss squarely in his face and said, “I’m sorry, it’s completely my fault. I forgot.”
Admitting his mistake disarmed his boss to which he replied, “Errr…well, ok. Don’t do it again.”
His boss was expecting to hear anything but that.
He was ready for a fight but all he got was surrender.
He had won, there was no need to pursue things further.
As a child, hiding our actions works but as an adult not admitting our mistakes is a dangerous game.
It’s often better to come clean straight away and deal with the consequences rather than letting things spiral out of control.
We often believe that we can keep things under wraps but over time it gets harder and harder.
The bigger it is, the harder it becomes to cover things up.
It isn’t easy to come clean.
Sometimes there are repercussions.
But if we admit our mistakes early enough, we nearly always have enough time to correct them.
Don’t fear fixing the mistakes, fear not fixing them.
Adrian Shepherd