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

by Jessica Bacal

For example, psychologist Angela Duckworth’s studies of “grit”—the ability to persevere through errors and setbacks—have led her to believe that it’s one of the main ingredients in achievement.

Forbes.com called “Why Millennial Women Do Not Want to Lead.” “Young women today,” she wrote, “are bred to doubt ourselves, question our worth and view ourselves as improvable projects rather than embrace the imperfection of our humanity.”

Women are more likely to get flack for mistakes, especially in typically “male” roles—this phenomenon is called “the glass cliff”—and studies show that women of color are even more at risk for being perceived as incompetent.

The problem is that anyone who wants to innovate, gain recognition, or become a leader will need to take risks and realize that mistakes are inevitable.

The ability to reflect on our own narratives is important for several reasons.

Even if we never put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), we are continually writing and rewriting our own life narratives. They help us to understand who we are now and where we are going. And they are always evolving.

Laurel Touby founded the most successful networking site for people in the publishing industry. It’s called Mediabistro.com and includes an incredible trove of information, including instructions on how to “pitch”

Instead, you almost need to see yourself as a freelancer, building skills and capabilities to take with you to the next job and the next job and the next job. That’s your toolkit, and you should be adding to it all the time, because you can’t rely on a company to take care of you and nurture you and bring you up in the world the way they used to back in my grandfather’s time.

Even in your own business, you still have to cope with office politics because you’re managing people.

Wherever you go, whatever job you take, you always want to be working on skills you can take with you. For example, learning HTML or the newest Windows operating system; taking courses or doing extra reading about your industry—anything to help you build your “toolkit.” • Know yourself, and don’t try to be someone you’re not. Don’t try to shove down your personality if you have too much personality for the corporate environment.

Life is not a game that you always need to be winning.

Don’t privilege how you appear to others over how you feel inside.

When I devoted myself to what I genuinely cared about, when I let my heart guide me (as opposed to my need to accomplish) I found true success.

I’d learned that when you privilege how you appear to others over how you are to yourself—when you choose seeming over being—you drift away from the strongest parts of who you are. The right to claim personal authority in your life is about claiming passion, and passion is what feeds our most important convictions and values.

RACHEL SIMMONS’S TIPS • Listen to your “internal voice,” that voice inside your head that tells you when you feel tired or thirsty, whether you should leave that party, if you should buy that cool shirt. When you think about the path you’re on right now, what does the voice say? A full-throated, passionate yes? A maybe? Or an I-hate-this-but-it’s-what-I-have-to- do? You can plug your ears for a while, but eventually, that voice grows louder, more ominous, and harder to ignore. Listen to it now before you get in too deep.

• Don’t be afraid to quit. Who cares what other people think? They’re not the ones living your life. You are. The people we are terrified of disappointing usually want us to be happy. Take the ...

There is no school, no therapy session, no amount of money that will earn you the wisdom and strength conferred by an epic-fail mistake. It’s like when babies touch something hot and scream in pain...

Even if you do advanced study within an academic field, it doesn’t mean you have to go into academia.

I think taking risks can be hard for women, but it helps to have a “what’s the worst that can happen?” attitude. I knew that if my company failed, I’d be able to move on. I had credentials that no one could take away and the resilience to not internalize failure—it didn’t have to define me.

Even though we’ve had several products that were market failures, they helped people to get to know who we are, and we leveraged that visibility to get other contracts and work on new products. So we see “failure” as just part of doing our work, part of innovation. I think that we all might be able to value our mess-ups and mistakes a little more if we saw them as part of the process of developing as people.

In any field, our resilience is tested. Sometimes it’s a sign that it’s time to move on—like when I left academia—and sometimes it’s just a bump on the road to achieving your dreams. Discerning the differe...

Sometimes it takes the wrong job to realize what’s a good fit for you.

It’s liberating to free yourself from the assumption that the best way to succeed is to keep moving up a ladder, where you become more and more “important” and more and more powerful. If you have to subdue or disregard your values, if you have to forgo your intellectual interests and lack the necessary evidence to be truly fair and just, then becoming important and powerful is just not worth it.

My mother told me that even though I was very comfortable in Detroit, I was “too young to be middle-aged” and should go to Washington, DC, to take a job I was being offered with the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. She would remind me: “You can always go back to Detroit if that turns out to be what you want.” Sometimes being comfortable in a place isn’t a good enough reason to stay there. It’s okay to take risks.

Money and a high-status job title aren’t everything when they fail to produce a sense of genuine satisfaction at work.

When I’m teaching, I often share with my students this quote from Howard Thurman, a theologian who greatly influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Don’t just ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it....

Realizing that a workplace may not be the right fit can be a trying and even hurtful experience. The search for a place that fit my values involved a combination of reflective work with a career counselor and networking with others who were already in contexts that appealed to me. Once I knew what I was looking for, I was able to target my research as well as connect with those in my field who could support my job search, especially other progressive teachers and those attending job fairs for teachers of color.

A lot of young people who want to do social justice work think, “I’m going to embark on this journey of changing the world by myself!” It took me some time to realize that the best work is done in collaboration.

Finding allies who are like-minded can sometimes be daunting. I’ve found allies and mentors by sharing my work at conferences, especially ones outside of my field. Cross-pollinating in different spaces allows for a larger network to emerge, giving rise to unexpected mentoring and ...

Be flexible in thinking about how to use your talents.

Prepare for public speaking events. If you don’t know how to work a crowd, then get help!

In general, a lot of good can come from not needing to be in control of everything. I would encourage every young woman to find at least one beautifully mucky place in which you’re not the expert—and then to wade in.

When it comes to public speaking, the most important thing to remember is that people don’t come to watch you fail. Care more about the subject than your ego.

People are comfortable with others who are open about their flaws, who don’t try to pretend to be more than they are. It’s easier to go through life being honest and owning up to your less-than qualities than faking it.

Even when you’re certain of your path from a young age, it’s good to be open to opportunity and possibility—and to the idea that having a career doesn’t have to mean doing one thing for your whole life.

The idea of “work-life balance” is not necessarily helpful. If you are immersed in your work and raising a family, you might feel a lot of good things—but it may not include “balanced.”

You don’t have to think, “I do this for work and will always do it.” Careers are long, and they evolve and change over time. That’s actually a good thing.

Take control of the story that you want to tell about yourself.

When you have major setbacks, you ironically begin to feel like you can do anything because the worst has already happened and you’re no longer paralyzed by the fear of something not working out. If I hadn’t run for office, I would never be where I am now, the founder of a successful nonprofit. That’s why I tell young people to fail fast, fail hard, and fail often.

We should be able to take new directions in work. One way of smoothing the path for a career change is to take control of your own narrative. I often talk about how I’ve had several careers already, but my mission has always been the same.

A loss in a run for public office—or in any situation where you’re competing for a job—isn’t necessarily indicative of how you’d do that job, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying for it. It’s the same as when you’re starting a company and asking for investment: If your first company doesn’t work out, does that mean that you can’t still be an entrepreneur or have a successful business? No!

Listen to your gut.

When you don’t connect with the work that you’re doing, it can feel nearly impossible to get it done.

Feedback is scary, but it makes your work better.

• If you’re any kind of artist, you’re going to have rejection all along the way, but if at least some of what you’re working on sustains you, it will help you to be resilient and to keep going.

• Sometimes you have to do jobs to pay the bills. I did that for years—I mean, I certainly didn’t feel “called” to be a waitress. But there was no way I could have become a writer if I hadn’t had a lot of jobs that allowed me to put my real energy into my writing.

Sometimes people feel like they should be writers because it’s cool or because their friends are writers. I’ve had students like this and I think, “You don’t really want to be a writer, and it’s okay to do something else.” Spend time figuring out what is ideal for you, not what others expect ...

But even when we’re standing with our hands poised at the proverbial door, we can learn to knock firmly and loudly, to become good advocates for ourselves over the course of our careers. In the following interviews, contributors discuss learning to ask for opportunities, advice, or information—and to not be afraid of appearing ignorant.

You and your bad decision are two separate things.

Even when you’re in charge, you can ask colleagues for their opinions.