“That was wrong”
What percentage of your time do you spend thinking about what’s wrong with your performance?
With you?
Any number greater than zero is waste.
This feels counterintuitive. Maybe even “wrong.”
Consider – by the time you observe your performance it’s already happened.
Therefore, it cannot be changed. The past is past.
“Wronging” what you did is a coping mechanism that you learned.
What you want to have right now is the outcome you intended, and you do not. That creates the upset you’re feeling.
You start trying on coping strategies to deal with wanting reality to be different.
- Lay blame on someone else
- Blame circumstances
- Shame yourself
- Blame the rules you feel like you “had to” follow
These coping strategies give you an illusion of control. They don’t give you what you really want.
Similar, But Different
When you try something and don’t get what you wanted, it can be for many reasons:
- What you tried was an incorrect action or plan
- Something you did not know disrupted or blocked your action
- Someone else’s action changed the outcome of your plan
- Your skill at executing your plan is not sufficient
- The cards didn’t fall in your favor – sometimes it’s luck
In order to move forward and act, you need to be able to look clearly at all of these.
When you’re coping, you only see what that strategy allows.
If you laid blame on someone, no other possibility exists – it was their fault, and they wronged you.
If you’re stuck in shame, you believe it’s your own fault, you’re not good enough. You can’t see the possibility that you made all the smart bets, and you couldn’t know the next card was a seven of clubs.
Stewart Emery, in Actualizations, put it this way –
“You must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself, to accept results and improve upon them.”
When you stop coping, you accept that you do not have what you wanted to have. You can begin solving for what you want to do right now.
Stop coping and “wronging” yourself.
Stop wasting your energy “wronging” yourself.
Correct without invalidating yourself.
Start accepting and growing.
You can do this. I can help.