More Than Our Mistakes
If I’m a master of anything at all, it’s catastrophizing poor performance into evidence of deficiency.
It could be the tiniest morsel of a critique hidden in an otherwise glowing performance review. My mind will seize upon that morsel and manifest a mountain of doom.
You too?
When you’re a people-pleaser intent on defining yourself by others’ assessments, it can be easy to turn any innocent mistake into an indicator of personal worthlessness.
I take any misstep, error of judgment or interpersonal slight, and I bake it into my identity. I become failure embodied.
The oversimplified thinking goes something like this:
I did something stupid. Others said it was stupid — so then I must be stupid.
As Brene Brown would attest, this maladaptive logic loop is how the monster of shame grows and corrupts us from within.
The reality, however, is that personal growth and development are impossible without mistakes and failures. Some of the best lessons, wisdom and self-development sprout out of the most astonishing failures.
