My workday started with an online meeting in which I had to present information relating to a project. After I joined the meeting, I realized that I had forgotten to put water in a small fountain on top of my file cabinet. It wasn’t gurgling that loudly, and I didn’t think anyone would care if they heard it anyway; but it got me distracted and out of my flow.

Things went downhill from there. I felt like I was stumbling over my words, couldn’t get my thoughts straight, was taking too much time and causing the meeting to run late, and had messed things all up and was a failure in general. I spent the next few hours wondering if everyone saw me as having a big “S” on my chest for “screwup” rather than Superman.

Although I kind of realized that those feelings were way out of proportion to the real situation, I just couldn’t shake them. For lack of any better ideas, I put a load of laundry in the washer during my lunch break and then exercised for a while, which helped to calm me down somewhat.

When I sat back down at my desk, my inbox had a very positive email from the meeting organizer, thanking me for presenting the information and telling me how helpful I had been. He told me that he particularly appreciated my willingness to take enough time to make sure everyone understood.

That was a very welcome reminder to keep small mistakes in perspective—after all, they’re just part of life.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.