How many times do you make mistakes and feel like crap? I know I personally have made many mistakes. I also know that I learn from my mistakes. When you repeatedly make mistakes, your body is telling you something is wrong. Either your focus is all over the place, you haven’t eaten or, you just don’t understand what you are supposed to do and you are too embarrassed to ask. Everyone makes mistakes whether you are a footballer, a business owner, or you work for someone else, or you are unemployed.
Self-sabotage
I see a lot of clients who beat themselves up often over small mistakes and then convince themselves that they are stupid. What if we viewed mistakes differently?
What if we viewed mistakes as feedback?
Recently a client of mine said “I am such a failure”. I replied, “there is no such thing as failure, only feedback”. He straightened up a little and said that he had never thought of it that way. Often looking at things from a different perspective means you get different results.
Mistakes v Lessons
Self-sabotage is a useless, wasteful piece of emotion. It is highly charged and it can destroy you. It is much more useful to ask yourself “what’s the lesson”. What is the lesson you have to learn? If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same results. If you look at feedback as an opportunity to change things around, you will learn the lesson.
So this week if you make mistakes:
- Stop, take a break, have a cup of tea or coffee or something to eat.
- Ask yourself “what’s the lesson” (even if emotions are running high)
- Decide what has to change.
- Tell yourself “there is no such thing as failure” only feedback
We all make mistakes. We stop making mistakes when we learn the lesson. Imagine being free from beating yourself up from making mistakes. You will be a lot less stressed. So, ask yourself “what’s the lesson I need to learn”
Have a great week.