We all make mistakes. Messing things up every now and again is just part of the human condition. Despite one’s best intentions, life is simply filled with minor missteps, omissions and silly errors. And, yes, even big blunders occur from time-to-time.

That said: What we do in the moments right after we make a mistake determines how well we recover and gather the strength, insight and determination to make things right.

Here are five simple practices that you can adopt and master to make those messy moments more bearable:

1. Give It A Name: One of the best practices that you can implement is to give a mistake a name. We accomplish two very important things by doing this: We acknowledge an error has been made and, we open the door to take responsibility for it.

This practice helps us avoid finger-pointing and excuse making. In turn, by avoiding these, we free-up more energy for mistake correction.

2. Time-Box the Self-Pity: One of the first things that we feel when we discover that we made a error is grief. Sure, we may get angry, even scared, but we also feel sorry for ourselves. The more we allow the self-pity to fester, the more we invite in other less productive feelings to take hold.

We can give ourself a fixed window—say, a count of ten—to acknowledge the mistake and feel sorry for ourselves. But once we get to ten, the self-loathing window closes, the mistake gets no more airtime. Instead, we shift our focus to steps we can take to rectify the situation, which is far more productive than sulking.

3. Keep Breathing: Oftentimes, when we make a mistake, we begin to stress-out. Part of the stress response includes improper breathing, even holding our breath, which just amplifies the stress feelings in our bodies

Let’s substitute all of that and really focus on making deep inhales, making even deeper exhales, relaxing our jaw, lowering our shoulders and just breathing the way we all know how to do. This helps lower the stress response and gives us the oxygen our brains need to help us solve the issue before us.

4. Use Kind Words: Our “inner critic” can be brutal! We tend to use self-talk language with ourselves that we would never use when conversing with another human being. So, just stop that!

A better approach is to choose to talk to ourselves with kindness and patience. Rather than using phares like” “I really know how to screw things up,” “I’m so stupid,” or “What a dummy!” substitute thoughts like: “I know how to fix this,” “I can figure this out,” or “I got this!”

It’s amazing what good can come from just a little bit of self-compassion.

5. Anchor It: As an avid golfer, I tend to keep a golf tee in my pants pocket. When I begin to stress about something, like making a mistake, I just reach-in and take a hold of it for a moment. It serves to remind me that things will be alright and there’s no need to get all wound-up.

Like Pavlov proved in his experiments, involuntary responses can be learned through repeated association between stimuli. I used a golf tee to train myself to relax – the simple physical action of touching the tee signals my nervous system to reset itself.

You don’t need to walk around with a golf tee in your pocket; any item can be used as an anchor. Choose something that works for you, practice this technique and watch how much better you feel when confronting a problem, like rectifying an mistake that you’ve made.

Yes, you will make mistakes. Life is filled with those unfortunate relationship moments, leadership missteps and all kinds of things that we neglected to do (but should have). What we think and how we respond in those instances when we mess-up determines whether the mistake gets amplified or managed effectively. The choice is ours.

Now, for one last thought:

Remember, the happiest people on the planet have learned how to not sweat the small stuff…and, you can learn that, too!