The 50th anniversary of The Pill has unleashed a flurry of articles about whether your doctor should have the right to choose NOT to prescribe birth control pills. The goading question in one article was whether family planning was “up to you, your God, or your doctor’s God.” Oh puhleeeezzzzeee!

It seems to me that your doctor should be allowed to withhold prescriptions to which he is philosophically opposed. And, it seems to me you should have a right NOT to go to a doctor whose philosophy doesn’t match yours. In fact, doesn’t it make sense that you’d want to share the same philosophical wavelength with the person who is authorized, permitted and allowed to touch your body in all those private places, ask you all those personal questions, and whose judgment can save your life or kill you?

Now that I think about it, shouldn’t a man over 40 have the right to choose a physician with really thin fingers? (I’m so glad my doc lost 40 pounds.)

These are the deep philosophical things I think about, coupled with analogies that makes sense to me.

Does it work for you?

The fine art of owning your mistakes and offering a classy apology has fallen on hard times. Often the offending person’s idea of an apology is “I’m sorry that your <insert whatever the offended is feeling here>.” That’s no apology. In fact, that’s a worse offense.

An apology is designed to demonstrate responsible ownership of your mistake and genuine sorrow that you’ve harmed the other person along with some assurance that you won’t do it again. So here are the steps to a good apology.

#1. Genuinely express your sorrow. Don’t be flippant, or fast with your words. If you can meet with the offended, look deeply into the eyes of the person you’ve harmed and say “I’m truly sorry.” If you can’t see them, either a phone call or a letter might suffice. If they are dead, you need to talk this through with your minister or a counselor.

#2. Ask “Will you please forgive me?” Then wait on their response. Hopefully it will be affirmative and collegial. The result of a good apology and forgiveness asked and granted is to restore the breach that was created.

#3. Thank the offended person for their understanding, and assure them that you’ve learned and will do better next time. Then do it.

We’re all going to offend. Sometimes it was necessary and intended and no apology is warranted. Sometimes its inadvertent and caused a hurt that we would have never intentionally caused. Sometimes we were just stupid, and did something stupid, and the consequence is ugly. Being able to navigate through a heartfelt apology is a skill we should all have in our toolbox.

We’re all going to screw up from time to time and not be able to deliver on commitments we’ve made. It’s inevitable. But our failure doesn’t have to be fatal. Here are some tips on how to screw up with integrity.

#1. Be the first to deliver the news. Don’t hide and hope that the people who are depending on you won’t notice and that you’ll slip by under the radar. Trust me, they’ll notice. So, when you’ve made a commitment on which you can’t deliver, don’t let them make a surprising discovery. You tell them first, face-to-face if possible.

#2. Own it. I received a call yesterday from a corporate executive—the leader of the largest corporation of its type in America. She had failed to deliver. She was calling ostensibly to apologize after word had gotten back to her that I was displeased with her unresponsiveness. However the “if” embodied in her “if I failed” statement coupled with the slight disowning of the problem, all after she’d told me “I will get on this” sort of bent the credibility of the apology and didn’t garner her any trust from me. When you’ve screwed up, just own it. Say “I have made a mistake. I am very sorry. And I am asking for your forgiveness as I do the best I can to make the situation right.”

#3. Overtly apologize. Say “I am genuinely sorry. This is my fault (I like to say “my bad”).” Also ask their forgiveness “Will you please forgive me?” (And wait for their response.)

#4. Do everything possible to fix the problem you have created. In some cases, late delivery accompanied by humble ownership of your tardiness is all it takes. In other cases, you’ve created a big—maybe enormous—problem for the other person. You may not even know the extent. If that’s possible you need to say “I think my failure has caused……but is there anything else that is messed up because I <insert what you didn’t do> that I need to get fixed for you?” Then proceed to resolve every matter that they were depending on you to resolve and the new issue that have cropped up because you failed to deliver.

#5. Ask for their help. Sometimes we’ve messed something up and we can’t fix it unless someone else will help us. So, put your hat in your hand, bow your head, humbly confess your problem, and ask them to help you fix it. You’ll be amazed at how generous and charitable people can be. They’ll usually run to your aid.

#6. Ask if you can move forward together, AFTER you’ve done the above steps. Once everything is fixed, I’d offer a final “apologize again” and say something like “I want to assure you I’m going to do my dead level best to never let you down again. Can we move forward and let me prove to you that I’ll deliver next time?”

#7. Deliver. Many people blubber and jabber and shuck and jive about what they are gonna do. Just shut up and do it. Less talk. More action. Deliver.