How to Keep from Making the Same Mistakes

Many of us are familiar with Bill Murray’s comedy movie Groundhog Day, where he keeps reliving the same day, day after day. Sometimes we live our lives like that, where we keep making the same mistake over and over again. Why do we do that?

Often, it’s because we think we’re the problem. If I can fix myself, if I can just try harder… That gives us a false sense of control. But the truth is, often, we’re not the problem at all.

Doh! Who Left the Secure Room Unlocked? Again?!?

In a previous job as a government contractor, we had a secure room in our building, a lab dedicated to a certain customer. It had its own spin-dial combination lock on the door so only people working on that program could enter.

We had several incidents where the secure room was left unlocked overnight. Typically, an early guy unlocked the room in the morning, and a late guy locked it up at night. But if, for example, the late guy had a doctor’s appointment so he was out early that day, and the early guy didn’t know it, nobody locked the room. The early guy expected the late guy to lock it but the late guy was already gone.

This is a big deal. When a secure room doesn’t get locked, you have to report the security violation to the customer. Enough security violations over a short enough time interval, and they cancel your secure room, your contract, and your business with that customer. The place could shut down and we all lose our jobs.

When this happened yet again, the office manager sent out an email about the importance of locking the secure room and how we all had to try harder and do better.

I told him that wouldn’t work. We were all conscientious professionals, and we were already trying as hard as we could. We couldn’t “try harder.”

The people weren’t the problem. We all understood the importance and what was at stake. Everyone wanted the room locked each night. It wasn’t the people that weren’t working. It was the system, the procedure, that wasn’t working. We needed to do something different.

So we laminated a colored 3” x 5” card as the “door tag,” and put it on a chain you could hang around your neck. It hung outside the door at night, signifying the room was locked. When you unlocked it in the morning, you hung the tag around your neck. That tag signified the open room was your responsibility. No one was going to accidentally go home with the 3” x 5” tag around their neck.

When you left for the day, you either had to find someone else to accept the tag (and hence responsibility for locking the room), or you locked the room and hung the tag outside the door.

So when an early guy who unlocked the room that morning was going home, he’d find a late guy to pass the tag off to. If he couldn’t find a late guy, he’d lock the room.

We never had another problem with the room being left unlocked. It was a very simple solution. But it was different. And it worked.

Trying Harder Doesn’t Work

More willpower doesn’t work. Trying harder doesn’t work. When we double down on our willpower, determined to just white-knuckle it and try harder, we’re saying, “If I just do what didn’t work hard enough, it’ll work this time.” No, it won’t. Because trying hard enough is not the problem.

“If I just do what didn’t work hard enough, it’ll work this time.”
No, it won’t.

Like in the example above with the secure room, we were already trying as hard as we could. We needed to do something different. And if you are going around the track again, you need to do something different too.

Losing a Body Part

Jesus talked about making changes and doing things differently. In the Sermon on the Mount, he put it rather graphically like this:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” – Jesus, Matthew 5:29-30

Jesus was speaking figuratively. He didn’t really want a bunch of one-eyed disciples named “Lefty.” He’s talking about removing yourself from situations that lead to the mistakes we keep making. He was talking about doing something differently.

For example, if you’re an alcoholic, don’t go to the bar after work with the guys. If your “no” is not strong enough yet to take on the peer pressure at 5:00 PM when everyone’s leaving, then work 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

“But I’ve got to reach them for Jesus!” Not at the bar, if it’s causing you to stumble. It’s someone else’s job, who doesn’t struggle with alcoholism, to reach them in the bar. You get coffee before work and lunch in the cafeteria.

How to Do Something Different

Here are 3 ways you can make a positive change toward doing things differently.

(1) Design your environment to support the behavior you want. For many of us, the environment we live in fights against the behavior we’re trying to install or the goals we’re trying to achieve.

It’s hard to, for example, lose weight when there’s a half-gallon of ice cream in the fridge calling your name. It’s much easier to not eat the ice cream if it’s not there. Yes, I realize I’m over-simplifying this issue. But you get the point.

It’s much easier for me to go to the gym in the morning when I’ve set out my gym clothes the night before. Then, when I wake up and I’m groggy, my environment is reminding me of my goal and helping me achieve it.

(2) Get help. A trained outsider can really help with this. There is no shame in seeing a therapist or a counselor or a life coach. We all need help sometimes. An outsider, someone outside your regular circle, will see the dysfunction your circle takes for granted. I highly recommend counseling. And, BTW, it’s normal to go through several counselors/therapists/life coaches until you find the one that works for you.

In the weight loss example above, along with not having ice cream in the house, what about if we dig into the pain that the over-eating is medicating? Be willing to deal with the root, not just the bad fruit.

(3) Treat everything like an experiment. Try different changes to your routines. You don’t have to commit to a change forever. Put a timeframe on it. “I’m going to try this for two weeks.” And then re-evaluate. See what works. Keep what does, dump what doesn’t. Chew the meat, spit out the bones.

Often we don’t try new things because we’re afraid of the shame if we fail. That’s a self-limiting mindset that needs to be reframed. Think of it as just an experiment. There’s no shame if an experiment doesn’t work out. We learned something, and we’ll try something else.

Your Turn

Is this helpful? What are you going to try differently? What have you changed in your life by doing something different? Tell us in the comments, and please share this post if it would bless others.