I was driving my kids to the swimming pool the other day when Luke, my eldest came out with what I thought was an amazing concept for a 6 year old:
“I wish the World had a rewind button.”
He wanted to go back to a time just before Christmas and have a different conversation with his Mum about a party he’d been invited to. In December he was adamant that didn’t want to attend the party and now he’d changed his mind and desperately wanted to go. I suggested to him that there was a way of rewinding what had happened and asked him what he wanted to achieve. After he’d told me his goal I asked him what he thought would happen if he just explained his goal to his Mum.
“I’ve tried that – She just got annoyed and said that she’d already told them that I won’t be going.”
I asked him if there was something else he could say before he told her what he wanted and he stopped and thought about it for a few moments. Eventually after a lot of prompting from me he came up with a plan of action:
“I’ll tell her I’m sorry for causing the bother and afterwards I’ll ask her what job I can do to pay her back for her efforts.”
As you can probably imagine he got what he wanted and has hopefully learnt a wonderful lesson at the same time –SORRY is one of the most powerful words in our language.
It’s always amazed me how few people seem to understand the power of this small, simple word. I bet you can think of a situation that’s happened to you recently that would have been solved if the other person just said SORRY in a heartfelt and authentic way. And before we get too high and mighty, I think we should also realise that other people have these feelings too and they are often expecting us to say SORRY.
I think one of the problems is that it usually takes courage and good self esteem to admit you were wrong and apologise. In fact I’ve met people who have such low self belief that they just can’t seem to say the word even when everyone involved knows they are at fault. They just don’t seem to be able to pluck up the courage to say it, even when they know it would fix the problem.
Some people think that it’s a sign of weakness to admit you were at fault and say sorry. To me it’s exactly the opposite – it’s a sign of strength. Most people can only say something like “I’m sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me” when they have good self esteem, or when they feel good about themselves.
But what happens when you do it, when you take the plunge and say that magic word – SORRY. Does it usually help solve the problem? Does it help repair the damage that’s been done to the relationship? Does the other person feel better after you’ve said it?
Those are all wonderful, positive things that occur when you say SORRY but the best thing that happens is internal not external. How do you feel about yourself after you’ve apologized for something you’ve done wrong? Personally I usually feel stronger, more in control and better about myself after I’ve apologized. By saying SORRY I’m not trying to apportion blame – I’m just trying to get to the solution phase as quickly as possible. I’m assuming responsibility and being proactive in trying to solve the problem – net result: I feel better about me.
I think saying the word SORRY can really help our own self-belief and I highly recommend it as a confidence builder. It takes a bit of guts and it usually hurts when you say it but after a short while you almost always feel better about yourself and you’ll get to a solution quicker.
The word SORRY can have magic qualities and when we SAY IT LIKE WE MEAN IT, it can often rewind a negative situation back to where it was before things started to go wrong.