***Next Time YOU Make a Mistake

Most of you are your own worst critic. So when you make a mistake you are much harder on yourself than you would be on anyone else. It is completely normal to be disappointed with yourself, but the longer you beat yourself up the longer it takes for you to regain your confidence.

If you were mad with a friend or a family member, that anger may not go away in five minutes. You might be angry for a little while. The same thing is going to be true with YOU. And again, if you are your own worst critic, you’re going to be harder on yourself than you would be with someone else. When you walk around feeling less confident you are positioning yourself for failure. The more quickly that you can come to terms with the lessons you can learn from your mistake the better.

When a friend or a partner does something and it’s really very awful, unfortunately, sometimes we have a break-up, don’t we? You decide you don’t want that person in your life anymore. You don’t get to break up with yourself. You are in your life forever. You need to forgive and forget.

Why don’t you work on becoming a person that you would not want to break up with? Take the opportunity to think about the kind of person you want to be. Give yourself permission to be human, to acknowledge that you made a mistake and remember all of the other good things that you have done. Of course you have a lot of good in your life. You have contributed on many levels. I know this because the people who are not looking to improve and contribute would not be reading this right now.

Please make a list of all of the good things that you have accomplished. Your list should contain personal and professional items. If you have a hard time getting started ask your biggest fan. Ask your best friend, your family, your partner, and your children. Everything counts! If you gave money to a homeless person, it counts. If you adopted a stray animal it counts. If you helped a co-worker meet a deadline or let them cry on your shoulder, it counts. Now when this thing, this damaging situation, whatever it was, starts playing in your head, counterbalance it with a list of “But here’s the good things I’ve done in life.”

Show yourself some compassion. If this situation occurred to someone else, would you really beat them up about it forever like you might be doing to yourself now? I hope not. If your answer really is “Yes, I would beat somebody up about this,” ; then think about it this way, if this was your own child, and your child messed
up, would you be mad at them forever? Probably not. Would you please give yourself the compassion that you would give to your child?

Remember, some of your greatest learning opportunities will come from your mistakes; but only if you allow yourself the space to make mistakes and only if you forgive yourself and move on.

(The above article is an excerpt based on the information in ‘Recovering from Damaging Situations’. To learn more please visit: MargaretMeloni.com)