Fight 4 Happiness

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I have struggled for so long to accept myself fully, flaws and all. I have realised just how much time we spend beating ourselves up over perceived mistakes.

Should I have sent that text, should I have spoken up in that meeting, why did I raise my voice or loose my temper. What is crazy is that we often beat ourselves up over things that only we think was a mistake. No one else has pointed them out to us or told us we did something wrong. We have decided in hindsight that is was a mistake.

Any yes some of these things will have been mistakes odds are some won’t. The reality is we all every single human being make them and when we hold on the guilt of our mistakes we are trapped by them unable to move forward and more likely to make them again.

So what can we do about it?

Acknowledge we are human.

When I was young I wanted so much to be Vulcan. To be free from the control of my emotions. To be ruled by logic. The reality is I am not, I am human as are we all. We have to succumb to the logic that in being human we are guaranteed to make mistakes it is normal. In fact it is essential.

Don’t set such high standards of ourselves.

This feels like a tricky one. I am a big believer in the old aim high mentality. That in striving for perfection we can achieve something great. However I am slowly realising that in striving for perfection we risk preventing our happiness, we risk not achieving anything.

Judge not of others.

This is an interesting one. I am learning when I judge others it is often a reflection of some form of judgement I place on myself. Judging feels like natural trait, comparison feels like the root of all evil. We need to stop ourselves from questioning other people’s behaviour. Learning to stay in our lane and focus on our bit of the journey. This release can reduce how much we judge ourselves. If we stop looking for flaws in others we will stop finding them in ourselves.

Role model screwing up.

We should all get comfortable with sharing our mistakes, owning them, shouting about them. We should not just be willing to share when things go wrong, we should make an effort get them out there known, to help each learn we all make them and we can learn from them and move on.

What mistakes have you made recently?