Success, Happiness, and How to Forgive Yourself

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn was on how to forgive yourself.

I spent a good part of my life tolerating mistakes at best...

And you don't want to know how I handled them when I was in a less than good mood...

For whatever reason, I expected a lot of myself.

And I probably held most everyone else up to the same high standards...

So it didn't make for a fun and relaxing time when I had something I wanted to accomplish.

In the worst cases, I usually gave up because it was just too painful and too much work...

And in the best cases, it was so unenjoyable, I had to force myself to do it...

Later I realized what I was doing...

So I had this great idea!

I would work on myself and get rid of all these horrible imperfections which after many years I can now tell you didn't work particularly well...

What has made a difference for me in accomplishing goals and having good relationships surprisingly has had nothing to do with other people or the circumstances in my life...

It was learning how to forgive yourself when you make a mistake.

I will go even further and say that it's more than that actually...

It has been knowing that:

• I'm doing a great job...
• Forgetting the mistake...
• Remembering the lesson and...
• Trusting that everything will be at the very least "fine" and most likely a lot better than that...

The truth is that no one could even imagine the horrible things that I've said to myself...

There is no person or circumstance that could even begin to be worse than the way I have treated myself when I have screwed up.

I know myself the best and...

I know how to torture myself better than anyone out there...

The actual mistake and its consequences aren't that big a deal...most of the time...

And the way I have talked to myself in the past doesn't help me get any closer to whatever it is I want to accomplish.

I've watched other people do it to themselves too...

They'll be going along fine and all of a sudden they'll make a mistake...

Usually it's something that is new that they haven't practiced enough yet so I don't even expect them to get it right...

We're just practicing using new skills as far as I'm concerned...

They will get so upset about it...

As if it's a big deal or something...

Even if they don't say anything out loud, they are screaming at themselves so loudly in their head that I can practically hear it...

And it's always over a small, unimportant mistake...

The few times that it wasn't unimportant, it was still a matter of inexperience or lack of information.

Easy to handle that...

Ok...so knowing how to forgive yourself and being nice to yourself and giving yourself the freedom to make mistakes feels really good...

And you'll probably accomplish a lot more when you know that you're competent and just learn from your mistakes.

But what was really surprising about it all was how much easier the rest of my life became....

I mean, when I started taking it easy on myself...

I started taking it easier on everyone else too!

Which made them a lot happier which made me a lot happier which then created this vicious cycle of happiness...

Ok...my life wasn't perfect or anything like that...

But I was taking it easy on myself when everything wasn't perfect, so it didn't bother me anymore...

And I was able to think clearly and get more done...

Who knew I was spending so much time beating myself up before I learned how to forgive yourself!

Now keep in mind that I still have things I'm responsible for and so does everyone else I know...

That hasn't changed...

And I still get it all done.

But I stopped getting all bent out of shape over the actual mistakes...

So when I did something wrong or something went wrong...

I could stop...

Look at the situation...

Correct it or find a way to have it corrected and...

Then keep on moving...

No bad feelings...

I'm still doing a great job...

Mistake? What mistake?

What did I learn from this?

And everything will be at the very worst "fine" and most likely a lot better than that...

And while we're on the subject of How to Forgive Yourself...

If you've got a question or something to say about "How to Forgive Yourself" or anything else, you can talk about it here...

Or just read what everyone else has said...

Or you can introduce yourself to the Thought Detective community!

And tell us a little bit about you, where you are living, how you got there or anything you'd like to tell us about yourself here...

Looking forward to hearing from you...

Suzanne

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