Many times in life we do things that we regret or we perhaps say things we don’t mean to others.  We also make little mistakes and have obstacles to overcome in our daily lives.  It’s pretty common, right?  All of us make mistakes – after all, we’re only human.  The problem is, however, that a lot of times, if not dealt with in the moment, we can sometimes internalize these feelings and keep things bottled up.  When this happens, it can set us up for failure and cause us to slowly belittle ourselves.  You may not even notice it’s happening, but if these things aren’t dealt with appropriately, it may cause crippling emotional damage overtime.

When we make mistakes, a common thing we all do is fall into the trap of saying to ourselves, “why did I do that?”, “what if I had said this instead?  Or, “what if I should have done this?”  When we start questioning our reactions, we begin to develop a pattern of over-analyzing all of our actions and we tend to cycle through the mistake or event over and over.  When we retrace what happened over and over again, we end up taking something that was small and making it bigger than it initially was.  Not to mention, it can take a toll on our self-esteem and make us question our abilities and talents.  Our confidence then shrinks and we become too hard on ourselves, which in turn makes it harder to deal with future mistakes.

So, what can we do to prevent this from happening?  Well, it’s quite easy really.  First thing first, is to just deal with the mistake immediately after it happened.  Figure out what you did wrong, how to fix it the next time, and move on from it.  Tell yourself, “I’m going to have a good day and this mistake isn’t going to takeover my mindset.”  Remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and that the mistake is a learning opportunity on how to maybe do things better the next time or how to be more efficient with something in the future.  Never, ever, however, is it a reflection of who you are as a person or a reflection of your abilities.  Always remember that mistakes make us stronger and more adaptable to our environments.  It’s not about the mistake you made, it’s about how you react to it! 😉