top of page
Search

What's that? You're human?!

Writer's picture: StephenStephen

Sometimes I love technology.


Sometimes it drives me crazy.


It feels like there are a growing number of tools that we have at our disposal to help us with doing our work well. Often, those tools are helpful and I don't have to think about them, they just provide assistance. Like spell-checker for example. Most of the time when I am writing something on my computer and I misspell something, the words gets highlighted and I know to fix that typo before I continue. However, it's possible to become dependent on these tools and forget to do simple things, like proof-read what you are writing, or ask a friend to proof-read them for you.


Case in point - Unsing Heroes!


My weekly blog posts start as an email to a couple of different mailing lists, and then I post it here when I am done. Last week I mistyped the words unsung heroes THREE TIMES in my email, and I didn't catch it because the word unsing wasn't flagged by the spell-checker and I didn't do a very good job proofreading the message before I hit send to one of my weekly client groups! Of course, I discovered it AFTER I hit send, and so far, I haven't figured out where the "wait, I want to unsend that email" button is (if you know where it is, please let me know)!


Once I realized it (thankfully, before I sent it to the second group!), my inner critic started barking away. "How could you have missed that?!" "People won't know what you were trying to say!" "I can't believe you are that dumb!"


That caused me to consider sending a Reply-All and asking people to ignore the typos, but I ultimately decided to not send my reply because it would point out the mistake all that more.


Enter into the story the feedback from people who read the email (who actually care about me and know I like to laugh about silly stuff).


"Did you know you said unsing instead of unsung?" Yes, I know.


"Did you know you said unsing 3 times instead of unsung?" Yes, I know.


"Ha! What's an unsing hero?" I don't actually know!


And then the perfect response.


"Well, at least now you have your message for next week. Welcome to being human!"


The truth is, they are right (just don't tell them I said that!). We all make mistakes. It's part of the human condition. And when we can more easily accept that we aren't perfect and that mistakes will happen, we can tell the inner critic to be quiet, decide to laugh at ourselves, and then move on. Otherwise, the alternative is to beat ourselves up and get stuck in an unhealthy cycle of holding ourselves to a standard we can't ever achieve, and that only creates more misery.


So here's to celebrating the fact that we all make mistakes and we can practice giving ourselves grace for when we mess up!


We might as well just admit it - we are all unsing heroes!


Be Well,

Stephen


Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center. We specialize in executive coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you! Click on our Services page to book a free consultation.

1 view0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Curiosity

Curiosity

Comments


© 2022 by Dr. Stephen Campbell with Wix.com

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
CredentialBadges_PCC.jpg
Screen Shot 2020-10-09 at 12.11.48 PM.pn
bottom of page