The Joy of Making Mistakes
My expression literally every day until I master the task
I made myself comfortable in the psychiatrist’s office, ready to take a test for ADHD. I was sitting there because weeks before I had made a mistake at work. It was the type of job that required intense focus and multitasking. I got a name wrong on an important document. The mistake made me feel like I was incapable of everything. It transcended work and infected every part of my life. I felt worthless, useless. I went to my family doctor and convinced her that something was terribly wrong with my brain and I needed a referral to a psychiatrist to test for ADHD. The psychiatrist, Dr. Brain asked me why I was there. I talked about my mistake and how it made me feel, my childhood, my stressors, my life n general. After a good amount of time, he handed me the ADHD test paper and I answered the questions. He looked it over.
“Well, I can see you might have some aspects of ADHD, but this test is not affirmative.” He saw my face fall. “Look Peta-Gaye, I can’t put a helmet on your head and scan your brain. That’s not how this works.”
Could this doctor read my mind? That’s exactly what I was expecting - some type of brain X-ray to show how fractured and broken my brain was.
“Well, what do I do now?” I asked.
“Sounds like you’re doing it. You mentioned strategies to help you with your job.” The strategies consisted of me using sticky notes and arrows to keep me on track. This is not what I wanted to hear. Dr. Brain looked at his watch. I took this as my cue to leave. I looked forward to our next visit - to prattle on about my childhood, my stressors, and how Dr. Brain could fix my brain and get it to focus.
“When do I come back again?” I asked brightly.
“Never.” He got up and ushered me to the door.
“What?”
“I make mistakes all the time. Last mistake, I forgot to sign a paper. The nurse called me. I had to drive all the way back to the hospital and sign it. It was a nuisance but I didn’t think I was incapable and worthless. It’s life. People make mistakes.”
I was speechless. Was Dr. Brain really comparing us? Then he told me in as nice a way as possible, that I might or might not have ADHD, that it didn’t matter because I’d figured out how to cope and I was to stop wasting his time when other people really needed treatment. What I needed to do was to figure out why I made myself feel so bad when I made a mistake when the entire world makes mistakes, and that most people don’t actually feel like dying when they do make one.
This happened in 2018. With time and perspective, it has occurred to me that this utterly humiliating experience in my work life was one of the best things that has happened to me. I realized that how we think about our mistakes is a key component to living the life we dream about, a life full of whatever we want it to be. If we are afraid of making mistakes, or of other people discovering our mistakes, we miss out on possibly great relationships, fantastic new jobs, a huge and unnerving new move, new skills, new friends, new hobbies, new languages. We miss out on discovery, adventure, joy and fulfillment. We are paralyzed with procrastination and remain stuck in situations that we should have long moved away from.
Days like this happen to all of us, but it gets better, especially with prayer, having a positive mindset, exercise, healthy food, supportive friends and therapy
I remember specific moments in time when I was so concerned with being perfect that I didn’t enjoy the activity and quit before I could even get better (dance class at 14 where I was surrounded by girls who had been dancing from 5; Spanish in university where the teacher called me la turista because I hated going to class and facing her judgment and criticism). I was about to repeat this pattern again with the above mentioned work incident. I sat across from my supervisor listening to how I’d failed. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this kind of job,” I said. I was ready to throw in the towel. From across her desk, she smiled kindly. I can’t remember her exact words, but she encouraged me to keep going. I’ll be forever grateful for that. I kept going and I’m still going. I have never made that particular mistake again. I look back and wonder how I could have expected myself to be perfect at the beginning. There was a time when I was embarrassed to even think about this incident. The more I shared, the more I realized other people have experienced similar things. Whether it’s imposter syndrome or perfectionism or full blown atelophobia (fear of imperfection), whether you have ADHD and identify as neurodivergent or not, the key is to get help and to know that every single one of us has mucked up something at some point. Sometimes it’s costly, inconvenient, frustrating, or embarrassing, but it’s usually not the end of the world.
In my dream world, mistakes in school are celebrated along with strengths. No child is ever afraid to put up their hand in class. Curiosity is strengthened. We are comfortable in our own skins.
The other day my daughter came running into the living room in a panic. “I made a mistake. I’m sweating. I messed up. I said the wrong thing. I got the company name wrong when they called me for an interview. Will this mess up my chance?”
The 2018 me might have panicked along with her. After all, perfection is the goal in an unsafe, imperfect world. The new me remained calm. “Breathe and know that in the larger scheme of things, that’s not really a mistake at all. Everything will work out. No-one in this world gets everything right all the time.”
Three days later, she got the job.