4 steps to take after you made a mistake

Everyone makes mistakes.  Your reaction provides a measure of maturity and personal ethics is how you decide to react to mistakes (your own mistakes as well as those made by others).  This post is focused on handling your own mistakes. 

1. Be honest:  Whether or not you get caught, it's best to recognize your mistake.  Even if you are unable or unwilling to take step 2, there are a few things you need to do.  Being honest with yourself about the fact that you made a mistake is vital to your integrity.  Refusing to perpetuate the mistake by trying to cover it up or lie about it is another thing.  People who always follow this rule will not have to memorize a tangle of lies made up to cover up a mistake, their lives are simpler for it.  But more importantly, they have opened theirselves up to the possibility of learning from the mistake.  In terms of law situations, it's very important to discuss the issue with your lawyer honestly.  More than one lawyer has built a case based upon a lie told by their client, only to find the case entirely lost because of the lie.  The truth would not have hurt the outcome of the case, but the fact that the case was built upon a false version of events showed that their side were lying.    
2. Apologize:  This goes beyond just being honest.  It's also best to let anyone affected by your mistake know that you made it, and to let anyone hurt by your mistake know that you feel bad for it.  This is one reason why litigating things in court is often a bad idea.  Litigating usually means choosing not to disclose the parts of the issue that you did wrong or that are your fault, but rather requiring the other person to prove your mistake.  Sometimes you can not help but litigate.  If you find yourself in this position, make sure your lawyer knows the whole truth so that they can make preparations for settlement conferences, and make recommendations with the full knowledge of what will happen in court, at their fingertips.  And once court is over, as your lawyer for the opportunity to apologize for your mistake.  You don't want to make admissions about things happening in litigation before the opportunity for the other side to appeal is over. 
3. Fix it:  Pay restitution, correct mis-information that you might have created, issue a public apology.  Do whatever it takes to make the victim of your mistake whole.  Or better yet, to put your victim in a better position than when you made the mistake.  Think of it as compensation for their trouble.  My husband backed into a car of a person who was parked in an awkward location a few years ago.  The car was old, probably worth about $800.  The person he backed into said that the dent would cost $900 to repair.  We gave the man $900.  Why?  Not because we are stupid, but rather because we are not going to fuss over a few dollars when the mistake was on our side.  Is our only reward for this one in heaven?  No.  There were several people who knew what we were doing.  This man was obviously down on his luck.  His transportation was obviously unreliable, and he had issues that made it difficult for him to park it properly.  While we did not think of it at the time, and this was not our motive, the people who knew what we had done recognized that we were being kind to a person who needed the kindness, and over the course of time, they returned that kindness in other ways.  Another example of this type of situation is where the mistake involved being mean or cruel to someone else.  It is imperative that you apologize and find a way to help that person recover their ego.  But if you can also help lift that person up to feel better than they did when you originally found them, then you will find the reward to be much bigger than you can predict.  If you cannot afford to make your victim more than whole, do everything you can to make sure that you at least make them whole.  
4. Take steps to make sure you never make a similar mistake.  If you parked in a handicapped space because you were late and in a hurry, then do the personal improvement necessary that you will not be in such a hurry in the future, or change your attitude about your own personal needs versus the needs of the handicapped persons that the space has been reserved for.  If you committed DUI, then go to the education to figure out whether or not you have a problem with drinking and need to stop drinking, or make a policy that you will always have a designated driver before driving.  Whatever it takes, whether it is therapy or paying more attention or keeping your house more in order, do it.  Let your victim know about the steps that you have taken to prevent making the mistake again.  This is just one example... preventing future mistakes does not always require intensive psychotherapy!  My husband regularly made the mistake of leaving his reading glasses at the office requiring extra time and effort to return to the office if he had anything to read while at home.  We prevented future mistakes by getting a second pair of reading glasses, so that now he has one for home and one for work.   

People who take these steps regularly will find that their life and their relationships with others improve.  They may not spend as much time in court (or out of court arguments) trying to justify, explain or cover up their mistakes, and they lost the opportunity to win the lawsuit lottery (if that was an option), but I suspect you will find that they're generally happier people.