Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They Got Out of Getting It Wrong

by Jessica Bacal

but you don’t

learn a lesson any better through humiliation.

it’s not that you were wrong, it’s that your decision was wrong. Whatever job you’re in, whether you make a mistake as a doctor or a teacher or an ad exec, the error is in your action, not in yourself.

Whether you’re the medical consult or in any role in which you’re deferred to as being in charge, there’s no reason why you still can’t seek support or advice, asking, “What are your thoughts?” You’re almost never alone at the helm of a ship, or anywhere else, for that matter.

I think that life is not so much about following your passion, but about realizing that your journey is a long one.

Second, I became aware that in trying to belong at this company where I felt like I didn’t really fit in, I’d reneged on my own sense of professional integrity—and

and that, in the end, my integrity was

more impo...

If you want to bring your new ideas to the table and make changes, you must start by honoring what exists. That way, you release people’s anxiety that you’re going to kill what they’re most trying to protect.

mistakes are nearly always learning opportunities and that you should only call them “failures” if you don’t learn.

Many factors go into an employer’s decision about granting raises, and we need to understand that. But we also need to leave a place that undervalues and underpays us.

It helps to understand that asking and talking about what we should get paid is problematic for most of us, and that the worst that can happen is getting a no.

It can be hard for women to say, “I think I’m worth more,” or “Would you consider raising that?” because we worry that people will think we’re full of ourselves.

We worry that if we’re given more money, it means we’ll have to do ...

you should think through not only what you’re going to say but how you’re going to feel in the face of pushback. And you have to come to terms with the fact that pushback doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

Embrace challenges; usually, people don’t expect you to do something perfectly right away.

Don’t let self-imposed constraints or the idea that there’s a certain kind of work you’re “supposed to do” get in the way of taking risks and pursuing what you love.

At school or at work, if you find yourself wishing for a new kind of policy or program, then ask for it. Make a good solid proposal. Go and invent the option you wish was there.

Failing is sometimes the only way forward. You can read thousands of books about public speaking, but until you do it, you are not going to grow. Learning through experience is key.

That day I learned that if you don’t know, you need to ask. Often we don’t want to ask for help because we don’t want to be exposed as unknowledgeable, or we’re afraid that somebody will reject us and not even give us the help. But if someone turns you down, just think, “Next!”—because somebody else will help you.

Sometimes a face-to-face conversation is the best way to defuse a difficult personality.

If the person is trying to intimidate or bully you, the last thing you need to do is run and hide, because you increase their power. But if you stand up to it and say, “Hey, I see you,” then most of the time, they evaporate.

I also learned that when everyone knows that you made a mistake, you need to make sure they also know...

Your ownership has to be bigger than the deal that some colleague is making. I had gone to my boss behind closed doors and apologized, but I also should have bee...

Rarely is a mistake fatal. There’s a recovery strategy for every single one, so the key is to ask yourself: How did I get here? What lesson did I learn? Then brush it off and move on, period.

There aren’t enough people telling young women that mistakes aren’t a big deal and that they need to set down that baggage.

Sometimes each of us has to prioritize, even if it means disappointing someone or quitting a commitment.

Try to choose the thing that’s scary rather than what’s expected.

Don’t let other people define who you are. When you’re feeling unappreciated at work, just let yourself feel annoyed. Don’t see it as a sign of worthlessness.

Every woman can learn how to say no a little bit more in her personal life and also in her professional life, priori...

Surrounding myself with colleagues who are totally unlike me makes me stronger.

The burnout rate in nonprofits is five years, so you have to carve out time for yourself and be really protective of it.

I didn’t have a specific path after college, but a lot of my friends did. They worked on Wall Street or got their PhDs, got married, and had kids. Now in their late thirties, many are going through career crises. I didn’t do any of that and I am very happy at the point where I am. I struggled earlier. You have to realize that at some point you’ll struggle.

That was the moment when I decided, “From now on, I am going to enjoy my jobs. I am not going to do work I don’t like.”

Your best investment is yourself, so it seems to me that it’s important for people to have some period in their lives when they get to just listen to themselves, and to figure out every day what they’re going to do.

Don’t expect too much of yourself when you’re young. It’s better to be a late bloomer than an early one; so many young successes flame out and spend the rest of their lives lamenting what they used to have.

Be brave enough to define your own future, rather than letting a bad job define you.

“every discovery or invention has its fair share of missteps, failures, errors and problems, which result in teaching a valuable lesson and helping compound experience.”

When you’re caught up in external signs of success, you don’t necessarily take care of yourself in ways that lead to personal sustainability. This undermines resilience because at a certain point you crash and burn.

I figured that if he thought I could do it, then maybe I should try.

I started to realize that there’s a time to get yourself together, but at a certain point you may be as together as you’re likely to get.

It made me think about how the ten-year-old me would have been really surprised at where the sixty-six-year-old me is now. She would never have imagined the things that I’ve had an opportunity to do, the people I’ve had an opportunity to know. She would never have imagined the things that I’ve had to overcome and the things that have come my way. And it made me think that you never know, when you see a kid, where the pathway of that kid is going to lead. You have to look at her as representing a future and a talent that we can only imagine, if she’s given the opportunity.

“A mistake is a retrospective judgment—we don’t deem something a ‘mistake’ until time has passed. It really has a lot to do with how critical you are of your past, how you judge it, and the kind of philosophy you have about the way life unfolds or emerges.”

We often blame our ignorance for our mistakes, but if you think of ignorance not as a passive condition but rather as an active choice, then it is actually quite empowering. Ignorance is an act of will, and so is knowledge. We can just as easily choose not to be ignorant. We can choose not to ignore the conditions of the world. We can take responsibility for our mistakes, rather than avoiding them, engage with our remorse, and stop living in fear and denial.

Mistakes are something that you can welcome, and you should make as many as you can so that you can learn more and more and more.

because it’s through the making of mistakes that we are able to live creative lives.

Really, living is a practice of learning to make better mistakes and to accept ourselves and our myriad imperfections.

“I want to live in a world where people are willing to admit they are wrong in public. Some people change their viewpoint on an issue or a situation because they realize that they were wrong in their assessment of something—and that should be celebrated instead of being viewed as a weakness.”

What keeps me going is knowing that powerful stories can lead to transformation for both the reader and the writer.

When there are risks involved in doing the work that you do, it’s important to connect to what’s most meaningful to you about that work—to understand why you do it in the first place.