Skip the Punishment

Skip the Punishment | nik.art

One of my coworkers consistently calls me out every time I say something along the lines of, "Oh, I’m stupid, I forgot to link the doc." "You mustn’t say that," she’ll counter. "Don’t beat yourself up." She’s right, of course.

Verbal self-abuse is only the lightest form of torture. Back in college, when I missed a deadline or frittered away an evening meant to dedicate myself to writing, I tried to get things back on track with Draconian measures. "I will not watch any TV until this is done," for example. These rarely worked, if ever. All they did was keep me fixated on my mistake instead of looking forward.

The more time we spend in self-flagellation mode after a mistake, the less time goes into thinking and building a better future. The speed of letting go matters. Mistakes are part of the deal. Punitive measures aren’t.

Now, whenever I mess up, even if it’s in a big way, I at least try to move forward quickly. I talk to myself calmly. I try to show myself kindness, forgiveness, and love. It doesn’t always work. I rarely sleep well on those nights. The emotions are still working their way through the system. But come morning, I can often start fresh.

Some mistakes are worth dwelling on for a while so you can extract the lesson. Those are, however, far and few in-between. Most offer obvious little course corrections. In your gut, you immediately know how to adjust. What you need to internalize is the adjustment, not the mistake.

Skip the punishment. Focus on integrating more so than fixing. And whatever you do, don’t call yourself stupid.

Nik

Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others.

Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.

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Skip the Punishment

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