Admit You Were Wrong Recap

August 26th, 2010 by philgerb

This week’s mission was an especially tough one, but one worth doing. Simple…but not easy.

Admit you were wrong. You know you made a mistake and it hurt someone, and you haven’t acknowledged it yet. Do so, and ask forgiveness.

Yeah. This is a tough one, isn’t it? Possibly the hardest one we’ve ever done here at ISWU. It involves swallowing your pride, sacrificing your own desires, and putting others first. It’s not easy to do. I understand, because I just had to do this yesterday. If you want to know what I’m talking about, you can read the story.

Doing this tiny little act for an area in your own life this week, however, has huge potential rewards. It can mend relationships. It can set you back on the right path, if you’ve been going down the wrong one. It can change your perspective. And that’s another way to change your part of the world, right?

There’s probably a few folks you know who you need to admit you’re wrong to, right?

So what did the team at It Starts With Us do this week?

I thought this one was a really good idea. Most of the time, doing nice things for people feels amazing, but apologies are something which are a lot harder to give because, let’s be honest, apologising can sometimes feel HORRIBLE. An apology is one of the most selfless things we can do because it can make the other person feel much better at the expense of our own pride.

Recently, I lied to my best friend. To cut a very long story short, she had lent me some money, and I was unable to pay her back when I said I would. Rather than tell her, I just tried to keep putting it off and putting it off. Eventually she discovered how dire my circumstances were, but she was devastated that I had felt the need to lie and was afraid that I thought she was some sort of ogre that I couldn’t approach. She and I came to an agreement about a realistic time for me to pay her back, but I knew I had hurt her feelings and until tonight wasn’t sure what to do about it.

I felt like the mission was a sign! I called her and I explained that it was my stupid pride that had stopped me being honest with her. I said I was too afraid to admit how bad things were, that it was wrong of me and that I was sorry and willing to do whatever to regain her trust. She appreciated the apology, so much so that it made her cry (which set me off too ). Now I feel like our relationship is back on track, and I no longer have to live with the squirmy guilty feeling that I had hurt her and done nothing about it.

I recommend this mission to everyone…it seems daunting but it really does make such a difference.

This is going to be a really hard mission.. I hate apologizing (probably because of my pride), but I’ve found that if I’ve done something wrong, saying sorry may not fix it, but it makes me feel a little better getting it out in the open. Often lately, my best friend and I seem to have gotten so different that we’re constantly on guard and thinking of everything we say before we say it. Even then, we tend to get into arguments. Standing back, looking at the big picture, and seeing that the argument is stupid helps me to realize that we’re both wrong, but if one of us simply wounds our pride enough to admit it, alot of things would be forgiven. So. Yeah.

I found this one hard. I’ve been needing to apologise to my mum for a while, but I kept putting it off and justifying it to myself. Now I’ve done it, and things are so much better already- it was worth it

This mission was possibly the most challenging one I’ve had yet. After reading it, I sat there for the best part of two hours reflecting on what’s happened this year and I found that there was someone I just had to speak to. I’m generally a confident person but this mission really did manage to shake me up a treat. Not because of admitting I was in the wrong but more so the subject matter.

Forgive me for not sharing the details. It’s incredibly personal and the conversation lasted several hours but the important thing is the outcome was good and the mission is successfully accomplished =]

Nate, thank you for this one. Perfectly timed as ever.

What did YOU do this week?

Amazing! Another great week for the folks participating in It Starts With Us. Join us today and share your success stories!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/halfchinese/139499559/

Identity

Subscribe

Keep in Touch

Want to Help?