Does "Messing Up" Throw You Off Course?

I suppose it would be fair to say that nobody likes to mess up. I know that certainly holds true for me.

But not everybody responds the same when they realize they've made a mess of something.

Having grown up with rather perfectionistic parents, making mistakes used to almost paralyze me.

After all, failing to do something well did not result in a learning experience and encouragement to do better next time… rather, it tended to result in a lengthy lecture about the bad things that happened to the sort of people my parents considered to be ”losers.”

As I grew up and entered the adult world one of the things I gradually noticed about myself was that these childhood lessons will resulting in an adult life where I tended to only take on things I could be almost 100% certain I would succeed at.

What's more, on those occasions where I did mess up something — perhaps in a work situation, or maybe in one of my relationships — my response tended to be that I would become more or less immobilized and largely unable to pick up the pieces and move forward.

Instead, I would end up just sitting there and repeatedly going over what had happened in my head without actually taking any steps to remedy the situation.

Of course, most of the time that led to some pretty undesirable outcomes… including a couple of jobs that I lost.

It took me some years — along with a fair amount of therapy — to come to understand that I was usually taking things far too seriously relative to the situation that had arisen. For one thing, there was no disappointed/angry father about to burst into the room to start giving me a lecture.

In most cases, including in work situations, people realize that mistakes do happen from time to time so you pick up the pieces and you move forward. And there's no shame in that.

And, ultimately, that was a negative lesson that came out of my childhood: there was a lot of shame associated with messing up… and pretty much no acceptance that it's just a part of life!

I was well into my 30s — I am now just past 60 — before I truly understood and embraced this idea. And I have to admit that my life felt a lot less stressful as a result of it!

Even so, occasionally those old feelings of shame are triggered. Earlier today I realized that I had missed a payment on a credit card because I had forgotten (or not realized) that even though I hadn't charged anything — and thus shouldn't have a payment due — I didn't actually double check the account, as a result of which I would have found out that the annual fee had just been charged and that I was now late on that payment.

There was a time in my life when that would have absolutely horrified me, but now I have come to accept that these things just happen sometimes.

Thanks for reading, and have a great Friday!

How about YOU? how well do you handle making mistakes? Easy to deal with, or do you spend a lot of time "processing," inside your head? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20220603 00:33 PDT
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