Humans are emotional creatures. When something doesn’t work, it’s normal to react. We can be disappointed, angry, shameful, prideful. We put effort into things, and we want to succeed.

There’s like four-thousand different inspirational quotes about dealing with failures. All sorts of successful people will gladly tell you about all the times they weren’t.

But in the moment, failing kinda sucks. That’s the part no one mentions.

If you want to learn from failure, you’ll investigate. You’ll dig into what you did, what you didn’t do, how others and outside influences impacted things. They’re all good parts of an investigation.

But before you get into all of those things, make sure you give yourself grace, and space. When you are still reacting to failure, your emotions cloud your conclusions. There’s a desire for blame, not cause. Focus lands on others, or outside, not inward. Exceptions become rules, and molehills become mountains.

When your job requires investigating accidents and injuries, give yourself pace to process the emotions first. Don’t start investigating until you can think calmly.