Sometimes you buy bagged salad kits and the “Best by:” date on them seems really far out and you think, “Awesome–I can get a few of these and they’ll be good for a couple of weeks!” but then you get one out to eat quick a week and a half later, after you’ve rushed home from work to let your dog out and give her a little attention in the middle of the day, and you realize the date on the bag was a lie, and now you have a salad that’s no good and not much else in the house that you could prepare fast enough to eat with the limited time you have so you grab a couple single serve guacamole cups and some chips and call it lunch.
Sometimes you’re driving and listening to a podcast, and you want to turn the volume up, but you also want to keep your eyes on the road, so you reach down and hit the side button on your phone a few times, and then wonder why the volume didn’t go up but the podcast actually stopped playing altogether, and then you realize your phone was upside down and you weren’t pushing the volume button, you were pushing the button on your iPhone that calls 911 if you push it several times in a row, and then you panic and hang up before the dispatcher answers and then they call you back and ask if you’re having an emergency and you have to tell them it was an accident and you apologize profusely.
And sometimes you’ve committed to publishing a blog post every week, and you plan to always publish on Sunday nights, but you worked Saturday so Sunday doesn’t feel like a Sunday and then, after 10:30pm, you realize that it’s Sunday and that you need to hammer out a post to publish quick, but you don’t know what to write about. This is that day.
Those top two paragraphs? Those are also things that happened in my life this week. Sometimes things don’t go the way I want or expect them to, and sometimes those outcomes are directly related to my actions (or inactions). One thing I’ve gotten a lot better about in the last few years, though, is working on my inner monologue. That running commentary in my head used to be pretty awful–if I made a mistake like accidentally calling 911, or not planning ahead well enough, I would obsess about it, and beat myself up because I should have been better, or I should have planned better.
Is it true that there are ways I could improve? Absolutely. Always. There will never be a time that I won’t have something I could improve about myself. But what I’ve come to realize in the last few years is that berating myself for a mistake I made has never helped me become a better person. It may have been effective at keeping me from repeating the same mistake, but it didn’t help me grow. And now, when I make a mistake, I’ve gotten a lot better at recognizing my mean inner critic and I redirect that energy to change the story I’m telling myself about it. Instead of focusing on what I did wrong and telling myself what a failure I am, I try think about what I could do better the next time something like that happens, and then I just let it go. And, surprise! I’m a much happier and more confident person now than I used to be.
Plus, mistakes almost always lead to learning. Now I know that if I accidentally call 911, I should wait for them to answer so I can tell them it was an accident. Now I know that chips and guac can be a delicious lunch that’s actually pretty satisfying. And now I know that if I forget to write a blog post until the last minute, I can still get one written quick and, sometimes, it may not completely suck. So, be kind to yourselves, friends. Sometimes you’ll make mistakes, but how you deal with them can determine how you feel about them.
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