This week we are talking about how we cannot let our mistakes diminish our happiness. I share a mistake I made and how I used my new “happiness tools” (and the help of my family) to pull myself out of it. Its humbling to admit that I got dragged down by the shame gremlins over something that was totally preventable. However, it made me realize that its going to happen, and when it does I have tools in my toolbox to pull myself out of that downward spiral. I hope that by sharing it with you I can inspire you to keep going on your happiness journey despite the hiccups. We’ve got this. As long as we get better at dealing with things, we get closer and closer to that happiness.
Resources I referenced this week:
The Gifts of Imperfection~ Brené Brown
Episode Transcript:
Hi Happy People, and welcome back. It’s coming to the end of the year. And if you’re like me and you did your annual review, I get a little reflective at that time. And I think it’s important once you’ve done your annual review, is to celebrate the wins.
Not to focus on the negative, but to learn from our mistakes and move on.
I actually really enjoy the annual review because you get to acknowledge what you’ve achieved in a year, but then also you get to tweak the things that maybe didn’t go as well as you’d wanted. If you haven’t done your annual review yet, I want to encourage you to do it.
It’s a really powerful exercise and it’s actually very empowering. As long as you don’t look at it with a negative tint. So I had done the annual review. I was in reflection time, just thinking about what are my next goals for the next year. And then work got really, really busy. But, I find that everything happens at the same time for a reason.
There’s always a lesson to be learned
I realized that you don’t know if you’ve actually learned a lesson from all the theoretical learning that you’ve been doing until something happens. Until you’re put into a situation and you either implement your new tool from your toolbox or you don’t.
Recently, like I said, work was really busy and I was in the middle of something. Deadlines are coming and dates are important and time is important. And of course money is important. For lack of a better word. I had kept going the way I’d always done things and it’s COVID-19 year.
It is not the same as other years. And so my solution was no longer going to work, but I kept going with it as long as I could until basically I was forced to figure out a different solution.
It cost me and my business time and money.
I figured out that I could have completely prevented this. If I had figured it out sooner, I would not be in this bind. I wouldn’t have wasted this time and money. I got really down on myself and I was very upset with myself. It was a lesson learned. It was a point where I could have reached into my toolbox and used some of these tools that we’ve learned this year.
Or I could just stay in the shame, the blame and the judgment.
I’m embarrassed to say that I definitely went into the shame, blame and judgment of myself for awhile. And the interesting thing was the reaction from my family. Neither my husband or my son sees that part of me very often. And they both were trying to figure out ways to help me out of it.
And I have to say when your 13 year old says, “Mum, can I give you a hug? Because you’re obviously upset.” I think that’s a parenting Win!
Compassion and caring really came through. The love and the support that I got from both my husband and my son while I was in that awful moment was incredible. It really helped to bring me out.
And here’s the win out of this whole thing.
I did eventually reach into my toolbox and pull out self-compassion, learning from my mistakes, re-framing the experience and just figuring out how to come out of this.
I honestly think when my husband said, “Can you please get over this? I want my happy easygoing wife back.” I don’t know if it’s because it was the trigger word “Happy” that I suddenly realized I had a toolbox and I didn’t have to be in this dark moment. I came out of it so fast. Well obviously if I’m going to judge myself, it was not fast enough!
But it was way faster than it had been in previous years.
And I can think back to some other screw ups I’ve made with time and money specifically, and I can wallow in those for days sometimes. Even up to a week. I’m not proud of that. But what I am proud of is this last one that happened in the past couple of weeks. It maybe lasted an hour and a half to two hours.
I remember that a light went on and I thought “I do not have to stay here.
This is not where I want to be. And. The sooner that I come out of this and move forward with a decision and forgive myself the mistake, the sooner I can be happier and life gets back to normal. I can be back to a happiness level that I never wanted to fall below.” If that makes sense?
I’m sharing this with you because it was a failure, but it was also a win.
Sometimes I think that we think that our lives are going to be perfect because we’ve done this learning and growing. Its not true. Right? We have to own our own story. Our ups and our downs. Our failures and our wins. And we have to love and accept who we are through all that in order to grow.
It is the running joke in my family that I’m a huge Brené Brown fan. And the reason I enjoy her stuff so much is because she’s humble and she shares funny and honest stories about herself. And I think that is why I have found the courage to share my screw ups and mistakes with you.
Because I think that if we realize that other normal people are going through these challenges, then we can too.
In Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, when I went back, something stuck out that didn’t necessarily hit me the first couple of times that I read it. It was her acronym DIG. I always think of when you want to learn something and you want to grow and you want to get better, you have to “dig in.”
And so I love her acronym DIG.
The D is for deliberate. Being deliberate in your thoughts and behaviors.
I is for inspired. Being inspired to make new and different choices.
And G is for Going. Taking action.
I love that because it reminded me that that is part of the reason that I started this podcast journey.
Because I think that the more deliberate we are in our thoughts and behaviors, the happier we’re going to be.
The more we pay attention to what’s going on in our lives and the decisions that we’re making, we’re going to start to realize who that inner person is. We can love and accept that person. I hope that every time you listen to an episode, you’re inspired to make new and different choices.
Every episode has a challenge and that’s because I want you to get going. I want you to take action.
And so even small, tiny steps forward are going to get us closer to our happier. Of course there’s going to be bumps and bruises along the way. We’re not going to get it perfect the first time. But, because we’re deliberate and we’re paying attention, we’re going to get better.
As you’re on this journey, it’s small steps moving forward.
We’re only ever really going to get there when we start acknowledging that there are tough times. And acknowledging that I’ve got tools in my toolbox that can help me through this. Remembering to reach in and to use them.
Maybe there’s a way that you can figure out, or let those around you know, that sometimes you’re going to need a trigger word. Or figure out a way for yourself to know, “Oh, I’m starting to spiral down into the shame, blame and judgment,” and figure out a way to get yourself out of that.
Your quote for this week is by E.E. Cummings. And he says
To be nobody but yourself in a world, which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop fighting. 📍