There are no perfect people. We all make mistakes no matter how good we might think we are or no matter how our colleagues perceive us. If you have been employed for a while then you know what it feels like to go through the failures when you messed up with something important at work. It can certainly harm your reputation or even relationships with those you work with. At this point we are not talking about minor things, we are talking about big-time screw-ups. After such mistakes, people often feel like they will never recover or be able to rebuild their credibility. However, we don't think that's true. There certain steps you could take in order to improve the situation after you messed up.
Career Challenges: Rebuilding Credibility After Failures
One of the worst things you could do after you messed up at work is to find excuses or blame other people. Especially when you know it is your fault. So it is much better to acknowledge what happened and take responsibility for your own actions. How you react to the screw-ups like that will define how people around you would feel about you. If you admit the mistake it will demonstrate to your boss and co-workers that you understand the problem and there is no need to explain why you were wrong. The more concerned you seem with what you did wrong, the better bridge you will build to get back to your reputation. However, it is only the first step.
The next one is to understand why the mistake happened. It is important that despite despair you actually get to the reason of why that mistake happened. This way you will know what you have to do in order to avoid making this kind of mistake in the future. And how do you do that? It is not just taking time to think everything through. A self-evaluation is a good tool, but another thing you could do is to talk with other people why it happened. Very often the big problem is connected with the way you approach your assignments or certain habits. Make sure you get to the core of the problem and not just talk on the superficial level. After you have admitted you had made a mistake and understood why that mistake had a chance to be made it is time to get to the practical things.
The next step would be hard work. Remember that sooner or later your hard work and dedication will beat your mistakes and people will be thinking of your dedication and not your mistakes. So don't try to be content with the minimum workload. Work extra hours. Identify problems and offer solutions. These things may seem to you like not a very significant thing but they will help you rebuild your credibility.
