Don’t dwell. I like to remind myself that I made the best decision I could based on the information I had at the time. Mistakes are OK as long as they’re new ones. Bad decisions are only bad if you repeat them. If you’re worried you’re not learning from your mistakes, borrow a page from the Dale Carnegie playbook: Review your meetings each week and ask yourself, What could I have done better?
—Corbett Drummey, CEO, Popular Pays
Any decision is an opportunity to learn; calling your decisions bad takes away from this opportunity. For me, the only bad decisions are the ones I did not make. There is a lot to learn each time you make a decision: You may see the flaws in your logic or learn new facts about the environment in which the decision was made. Maybe you were too emotional or not emotional enough. You just have to keep trying to get to the right place the next time.
—Hanna Adeyema, co-founder, COO, Tenacity
As a leader, you have to be comfortable making decisions at all times. Otherwise, you’ll get stuck being indecisive, and it can halt progress. I like to make decisions quickly and move on. If they don’t work out, I evaluate why so I can be better prepared in the future. There’s no changing the past; you just have to move on.
—Justin McGill, CEO, LeadFuze
Don’t dwell on it, move forward and figure out how to fix that bad decision. It won’t fix itself.
—Laura Hall, co-founder, For Love & Lemons
I move on by admitting my mistake to myself and other people involved. What’s important at this point is to have a “better case” scenario in mind, and a solution to propose to correct the undesirable trajectory. Once this part is clear in your mind and heart, you have to stick to it and implement it with rigor.
—Christine Renaud, CEO, E-180
I focus on what I want to create or achieve, and choose not to get hung up on what I could or should have done. I like to keep my eyes on the prize.
—Kat Loterzo, director, Kat Loterzo
Related: 10 Things Successful People Never Do Again
This article originally appeared in the November 2016 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
