Turn Your Mistakes into Opportunities to Get Better

While we often view past struggles as the unfortunate parts of our story, I’ve learned to see them as opportunities. I no longer get down on myself about making mistakes as long as I make things better the next time. I don’t know if it’s my optimism or some kind of lesson that’s been instilled in me, but I’ve been operating in this “just make it better the next time” mentality for a long time now.

Our staff just returned from Chicago.

We’d been hosting Storyline Conference at Willow Creek. This is now the 4th conference I’ve been able to curate alongside Don. When I started working with Don, I had never put on an event at this scale. As a retired musician and manager of a musician, I had put on concerts, though. To me, it was the same thing.

I, for some reason, delight in being the organizer. So, when Don asked if I thought I could take over the conference, I said, “Yes!” My friend Bob had been teaching me that good things happen when you “just say yes.”

“How hard could it be?” I thought. *cue eye rolls from all professional event coordinators

So, I dove in.

Whenever I have a big project in front of me, the only way I know how to manage it is one task at a time. I started making lists of tasks and grouped them together in categories — Speakers, Travel/Lodging, Event Location, Misc.

Week by week, I checked a few more things off the ole to-do list and before I knew it, we had a conference in front of us.

At the first conference, some things went really well. And, well, some of it didn’t. Fortunately, nothing major. But any time you gather a large amount of people, you can gage the effectiveness of communication (and other things) by how many emails you’re receiving. If you are doing a great job communicating to your attendees, they don’t write to inquire about things you’ve forgotten. But if they’re left wondering about anything, they write in. I received a lot of messages at that first conference.

But here’s how I stayed optimistic:

I told myself, “All you can do is make the next time better.”

Whether it was the next email I sent out to everyone or changing how I organized the conference program as a whole, I had the opportunity to make improvements.

I decided to find joy in the journey of making every conference better than the one before. And I’m happy to say, this last conference was definitely our best yet.

Without the first three conferences under my belt, I never would have known the ratio of pastries-to-person or the number of breaks that would be needed for a session to flow well.

I’ve watched sessions go too long.

I’ve seen crowds begin to disengage with the speaker, and it having little to do with the content. The people just needed a break! So, at the next conference, we shortened the sessions and gave them more breaks. Simple changes, better results.

I’ve learned so much about the needs of our attendees from surveys, talking to people at the conference itself, and watching the #StorylineConf hashtag like a hawk. When people have specific negative feedback for me, I try to remember that most people aren’t mean, they’re just frustrated and need my help. And if I give them the kindest help they’ve ever received, they tend to not be frustrated for very long.

Some of us live day-to-day feeling guilty about our past mistakes.

Messing up can feel discouraging.

But the God I know always offers grace over guilt. Maybe you snapped at someone last night out of frustration or feel like you dropped the ball at work or haven’t shown up for a friend in the way you’ve wanted to.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

Each one of these scenarios is an invitation to learn and get better. A bad history cannot hold you back if you refuse to repeat it.

What did you learn last week that will enable you to have a better week this week? Make a list if you have to. Offer yourself grace for the harder days and make today awesome. All you can do is make the next time better.

Turn Your Mistakes into Opportunities to Get Better is a post from: Storyline Blog