“No matter how many mistakes you’ve made or how slowly you’re progressing, you’re still ahead of those who don’t try.” This quote from Tony Robbins extols proactivity, not sitting back and daring to take risks.
However, even so, the prospect of making certain mistakes can be very frightening. Sometimes the fear is so great that it paralyzes us and we decide not to move forward. In other cases, we take a risk but fail. Then we fail to accept the mistake but instead we carry it on the burden of our guilt, which becomes increasingly heavy and prevents us from moving forward.
Forgiveness: Beyond the symbolism there is a practical reason
A very interesting study conducted at Carleton University revealed that learning to forgive ourselves is not merely a symbolic act, but has practical implications for our lives. These psychologists followed 119 university students throughout their first year of college. They all had something in common: they had procrastinated too much during the first semester, had studied too little, and, as a result, they got terrible grades on their exams during that stage.
However, forgiving themselves for that mistake was crucial to changing their approach to second-semester exams. Psychologists noticed that those who remained stuck in guilt got worse grades. However, those who managed to forgive themselves and move on became more proactive, procrastinated less, and ultimately improved their academic performance.
These psychologists are convinced that forgiveness allows us to move beyond maladaptive behavior and focus on the future, without the burden of past actions hindering the present.
It should also be noted that the feeling of guilt generates the tendency to avoid certain behaviors, tasks, and people. In practice, since this guilt is active, we will have the tendency to avoid similar situations in the future that may generate even more guilt, since we will associate them with something negative. On the contrary, when we manage to forgive ourselves, these situations cease to be a problem and we have no reason to avoid them, but rather we are encouraged to face them.
The 5 essential phases of emotional healing
1. Realize the mistake. The first phase of forgiving yourself is to understand the true magnitude of what you have done. There is no point in denying the mistake because it will not go away. There is also no point in making excuses for your behavior because this will only keep you in a state of permanent denial. You simply have to accept that you have made a mistake.
This moment can be painful because you are probably, for the first time, fully aware of the harm you have caused. However, it is important not to be afraid of suffering. Do not deny the pain, but feel it and accept it as a necessary stage on the path to emotional healing.
2. Understand our role. Once we are aware of the error, it is time to evaluate the consequences of it, both for us and for the people involved. However, it is not about starting a witch hunt in search of those responsible, but rather about assuming our share of responsibility for what happened.
It is a difficult phase because we tend to overemphasize our role. Overwhelmed by guilt, it is difficult for us to realize that although the mistake may have been ours, there were probably different circumstances that pushed us in that direction. Of course, the goal is not to look for excuses, but simply to understand why we made that decision. We will probably realize that we acted in the best way possible given the circumstances, our level of maturity, and the information we had at the time.
3. Learn the lesson. Dan Sullivan claimed that every experience is made up of two parts: the part that works and the part that doesn’t. Once we identify both aspects, we are able to find new ways to maximize the part that worked and eliminate what didn’t.
This means that even from mistakes we can learn something. Every experience contains a life lesson. If we only limit ourselves to experiencing pain and guilt, the experience will have been in vain. On the contrary, if we are able to find the lesson, we will come out stronger, more resilient and better prepared to face the future. Therefore, ask yourself what you can learn from your mistake for the future.
4. Take it with a sense of humor. When we are immersed in a complicated situation, or when our mistake seems too big, it is difficult to find a comic relief. However, learning to laugh at ourselves is essential to face problems. In fact, Shakespeare said that “laughing at our own mistakes can lengthen our life.”
It’s not about minimizing the damage or the mistake through laughter, but about being able to see it from another perspective, to assume the necessary psychological distance to be able to laugh at our worries, attitudes or behaviors. In fact, if you look back and remember how scared a teacher was or how worried you were about your first kiss, it’s likely that a smile will appear on your face because you now find hilarious what worried you in the past. In the same way, what worries you today will be water under the bridge tomorrow.
5. Turn the page and move on. Once we have accepted the mistake and learned the lesson, we have no choice but to move on. There is no point in continuing to be stuck in the same chapter of our life. In fact, by doing so we will only be denying ourselves the opportunity to continue living.
It is important that we are able to forgive ourselves for that mistake and give ourselves permission to move on. We are not our mistakes, our mistakes do not define us as people. We are much more than that. What truly shows our worth is the way we deal with those mistakes.
In any case, always remember the phrase of the German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: “There is nothing worse than making mistakes for fear of making mistakes.”
Reference:
Wohl, M. et. Al. (2010) I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences; 48(7): 803–808.
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