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Mistakes and failures don't have to define a person.

Radical self-compassion helps people reflect, learn, integrate, and grow.

If experience is part of the goal, then hard-earned lessons become perspective that can be carried forward.

Part of living means we will make mistakes and drop the ball from time to time. Things won't work out as planned, and we will come up short on something we worked really hard for. Sometimes we prepare as well as we can, give something everything we have, and still do not get the result we were hoping for. Perhaps the interview doesn't land, the project we poured ourselves into falls flat, or we lose a job because our position is eliminated. Or maybe we miss a deadline or snap at someone we care deeply about after a long day.

Some things that happen are completely outside our control. Life happens; sometimes we get knocked down, and it is not for us to understand all the moving parts. Other times, maybe we didn't bring our best energy or attitude; we were tired, distracted, or moving too quickly on autopilot, and we experience a failure. We also tend to make more mistakes when we're living in the zone of distress.

Whatever the cause, we can be quick to turn the event into a story about ourselves. We might tell ourselves things like: I'm a failure. I always drop the ball. Something is wrong with me. I should have known better.

Yet failures and mistakes are events, not characteristics.

Reframing Mistakes and Failure

A missed deadline is something that happened, not a description of your character. A plan that didn't work out is a circumstance, not a verdict on your ability. This shift in language matters, because when the story becomes about us rather than about what occurred, we stop looking at it clearly. The reality is that harsh self-criticism does not necessarily help........

© Psychology Today