Growing through mistakes

Teach our young adults that making good choices is a process.

One of the ways we can guide young adults is to help them face their personal reality without being defensive. None of us really wants to face the truth, and yet it is the fastest way to personal growth. Before he came on Miomo (the Making It On My Own program), one of our students, age 19, lost his apprenticeship. He was devastated. He took it personally, and the dismissal was just another blow to his fragile self-esteem.

I suggested that his mother support him by going with him to the exit interview and to ask why he lost his apprenticeship, specifi cally around these criteria:

• Integrity | Character

• On-the-job, technical skills

• Relationships | People skills

It turned out he was coming to work stoned or hung over, which affected his character, his skills on the job and the way he dealt with people.

After completing Miomo, this young man took full responsibility for his failure. He saw that by changing his lifestyle he could pursue his career with a fresh outlook. He is now clean and looking for a job with his self-esteem in tact, knowing that it was the drugs, and not his natural abilities that let him down.

The dismissal became a valuable tool in helping him grow, but he wouldn’t have had the maturity to go through this exercise alone. He would not have had the courage or the composure to ask these questions without his mother.

When we become bigger, our problems seem smaller

We once had a group of graduates organise a reunion of their Miomo crew. They thought it would be great to recreate their Miomo experience. They hadn’t counted on the fact that there would not be the same boundaries in place. They did not plan properly and consequently got into a bit of strife. They were devastated; they had let themselves, their parents and me down.

I contained the situation and then wrote them an email explaining, in the form of lessons to be learned, where they had gone wrong. Then I outlined the steps to take to restore themselves and the relationships. I also assured them that I valued them just the same. Then I gave them clear strategies to implement so that it never happened again.

Many of them commented that they didn’t know how to recover after a mistake, that no one had ever helped them understand the process. This breaks my heart because if you don’t know how to grow from mistakes, then you are bound to repeat them and be damaged by the same behaviour.

Many young adults come to the conclusion that they are total losers with no chance of ever producing consistently good behaviour. I don’t like calling people losers, rather they are potential winners who have temporarily lost their way. And, when people lose their way, they need others to stand with them to help them fi ght for their future potential.

We must never stop asking, “Is there a better way?” We can’t pray for progress and fi ght change. We try to resist, it but it says, “Ready or not, here I come.” To grow stronger through change we must give up, wise up and toughen up. To have a better “self,” we must give up the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us. Saying that you want to “turn over a new leaf” may be a noble statement, but the hard work of actually remodeling the brain and heart to produce the change is another.

At 22 I met an amazing woman who for the next eight years mentored me in life and in business. I would complain about my seemingly insurmountable problems. She would say, “Yvonne, don’t wish your problems were smaller, you must become bigger.” She said that a person was not to be measured by their outward appearance, but by the capacity of their heart and the quality of their character. This character, she said, is developed through facing challenges head-on and learning to do what is right, not what’s convenient or what “saves face.”

She would constantly reminded me of the John Maxwell philosophy that personal growth and making good decisions is a process that cannot not be learned in a day but rather on a daily basis. I took her advice: For about an hour a day, six days a week for the last 34 years, I have read, watched, or listened to over 10,000 hours of good material.

I shared this concept with the students and reminded them that they have time on their sides. In fi ve years, each of those wonderful young adults will have developed their character from the material that they have put into their heads and the people they have taken advice from. I pray that they choose well.