The One Person You Should Always Maintain A Healthy Relationship With
The One Person You Should Always Maintain A Healthy Relationship With
100 Things #012 - Make Mistakes
This last week has been a bit difficult, and it’s not looking like this coming week will be much different.
Between school obligations, family responsibilities, a hectic work schedule, being a dog parent, trying to be a good relationship partner, and now, also working on writing, it’s easy to imagine how one’s plate can start to feel a little too small.
While a healthy mindset, realistic expectations, and dedication to being there for yourself can keep the balancing act going most of the time, there is the occasional week where a small something falls by the wayside.
Last week was one of those occasions.
No sweat, though, right? One small misstep is an easy enough thing to recover from?
In most cases, I’d agree, and even now, this is the sort of thing I find myself repeating, hoping the sentiment will sink in. The real difficult part when making a misstep, though, is not letting the spiral grab a hold of you.
It can be easy enough to bounce back from a mistake when one falls short in an isolated moment. Get back up, dust yourself off, and continue on.
But what happens when, in the recoil of that first mistake, another error is made? And maybe even another?
Spiralling, and spiralling, and spiralling… Sometimes, it can feel like all of a sudden, this domino effect of negative emotions and self-doubt becomes more than one can simply bounce back from.
To an extent, this may be my inner perfectionist speaking, but I also feel like everyone, to some extent, harbours perfectionistic tendencies. Some are just better at quieting that part of themselves than others.
I’ve thought about this quite a bit lately. What exactly is it that causes so much internal stress and strain when one makes a mistake? Why is it that so much of the emotion that comes after the fact is all self-directed? Can everyone relate to this problem? Am I alone in feeling this way?
It wasn’t until a journaling prompt jumped out at me, and made me realize that I may need to start approaching these questions in a different way…
“What was the last thing you forgave yourself for?”
To me, this is pretty powerful stuff.
In my mind, to a self-proclaimed perfectionist, a question like this cuts right to the meat of a pretty big problem — realizing I can and do make mistakes, and that's okay.
I know to some, it probably sounds silly, but this can be a pretty tough thing to fully internalize as someone who struggles with perfectionism, and not the kind that you bring up in a job interview as your “biggest flaw.”
This is the kind of perfectionism that eats you alive when you notice a slip-up in your phrasing of a sentence, or that causes you to sweat profusely when you realize you’ve had a small stain on your pants all morning.
A journaling prompt like this one sees through all of that, and asks you, as if it’s common practice, what you’ve forgiven yourself for.
It gives you permission to recognize the mistake, understand it, process it, and be okay.
It normalizes something, that for some, feels like anything but normal.
And so really, this post is somewhat me answering that journalling prompt.
I forgive myself for dropping the ball last week. It happened, and that’s okay, and it will probably happen again, and that’s okay too.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, and it feels like it may be a skill that I could have developed a little more by this age, but hey, better late than never. So here I am, cutting myself some slack.
Reflecting like this has me nostalgic for a line that my mother used to say to me quite a bit when I was a kid, beating up on myself for struggling with school, or sports, or anything of the sort.
“The only person you have to live with for the entirety of your life is yourself, so you might as well get along with him.”
I may be paraphrasing a bit, but the point still stands.
I have this feeling that life could likely be a hell of a lot easier if a person could forgive themself for the small stuff, so I’m going to give it a go, and encourage you all to do the same.
I’ll leave you here with a few journaling prompts for those who want to do a bit of guided thinking around this topic:
Reflect on a recent mistake or setback you experienced. How did you initially react to it? Did you find it difficult to forgive yourself?
Consider the importance of normalizing self-forgiveness. How can acknowledging and accepting our mistakes contribute to personal growth and resilience?
Reflect on the concept of self-compassion as a journey rather than a destination. How can you continue to nurture and cultivate self-forgiveness in your daily life?
That’s all from me. If you’ve enjoyed, or have any stories of your own to tell, I’m all ears.
For now, have a good week, and I’ll see you at 100.