I woke up this morning to see a statement from Ben O’Keefe admitting he does make mistakes, thereby stirring the whole murky quarter final pot up again. Nothing we can do is going to change the outcome and I don’t think it helps our players either.
As a business owner, it’s easy to replay things in our head and wonder “what if”, “should I have”. While having regular debriefs can be helpful to keep the train on the track so to speak, over thinking can be dangerous.
We will never solve problems by running away, because the problem will remain and potentially get worse, but over-obsessing about something in the past is not helpful. We shouldn’t waste our time or that of those around us by trying to solve things that can never be solved or understood.
I have found that learning to detach and that often means walking away from my desk or just turning the PC off for the day may feel scary but in the longer term actually helps. Taking a step back and re-evaluating things allows us to see the bigger picture and allows us to see that the problem we were focussed upon wasn’t really as huge as we thought.
It also allows us to see that problems are not and should never be our whole world; the important thing is learning to recognise what is important.
When working in a team, it’s sometimes hard not to feel stupid for going back to square one and rethinking something. We may feel that others will judge us for this which then puts us in a defensive state, but it’s far better to correct an overload or other error as soon as possible.
Are you guilty of replaying mistakes in your heard? How have you been able to stop doing this?
PS. And as for Ben O’Keefe: yes he’s been involved in other questionable decisions, but as he’s reminded us: “Certainly, no one can question my eyesight. I’m an Ophthalmologist.”
