Life is messy and we will make messes as we live it.
We’re made for big promises that may take a lifetime to keep. Marriage is one example, pursuing excellence in a career is another. We may commit to work for justice in a particular way or for the flourishing of a particular neighborhood or to care well for our aging family members.
Then we begin a long-term learning process as we learn to keep the commitments we have sincerely made. In this process, we leave a wake of failures and half-successes behind us and it is up to us to also learn to clean up our messes.
In our own lives, we have found a template for cleaning up messes to be lifechanging. It supports our efforts to learn while also forming courage and humility in us. We practice this personally and in our leadership and we commend it to you.
Acknowledge the mess.
Whether we have failed to keep our word or have failed to honor our values, we see that we have created a mess. If we are human, we immediately look for ways to hide or to deflect attention away from our shortcomings (Adam and Eve, anyone?). However, if we can describe the mess transparently (especially before we are caught or called out), we build trust in the cleaning up process. As much as possible, we try to do this without shame or self-condemnation, not only because they are almost always misplaced but also because they get in the way of relational repair.
Get present to the impact.
If there is any magic in this template process, it is this: we ask others about the impact of the breakdown on them and we listen nondefensively as they tell us. It changes our relationships when we can tell the person who made the mess how it affected us and then have a sense that they “get it,” that they truly understand the impact of their actions. Otherwise, we may say that we’re fine, that we’re over it, but there is a good chance that we’re not.
Offer a heartfelt apology.
This is when a sincere “I’m sorry” really makes a difference: after (and only after) we’ve heard the impact of our actions on others. A premature apology is not only emotionally useless to the person we’ve hurt; it may actually disrupt the repair process.
Make amends and repromise.
If there is something we can do that will make things right, we need to do it. Even a symbolic gesture can mean a lot. Then we come back to our original promise (implicit or explicit) and recommit. Maybe we will make the same commitment again. Maybe we revise our commitment based on new information. Either way, we figure out what we need to learn – and how we need to learn it – in order to do better.
Many of us work hard to make sure that we don’t mess up, that we keep all our promises, that we don’t do things we’re not already good at. But that can be a small, limited way to live. Giving our word to meaningful things – and then cleaning up our messes as they arise – gives us access to a meaningful life.
