Thought Download Reflections Part 4

When you said “It’s ok to not know the “how” yet. Perhaps as you begin making these shifts you can focus more on the process of how you react to mistakes rather than the details of what happened.” Do you mean to not plan the Mistake Protocol yet because I need to focus more on how I am reacting to mistakes and then make the protocol from that? Rather than, ok I made this mistake and I need to do X, Y, Z to fix it?
Here’s some suggestions I have come up with:
I am becoming a person who…

…Is becoming ok with mistakes happening (I chose this rather than “Is becoming ok with making mistakes” because I felt the wording of making mistakes makes me take full responsibility and I think sometimes things happen not solely because of me, but I feel like they have and I put that on myself. For example, something is forgotten at work or whatever, and I take on all the blame, but I am part of a team who also has access to see impending mistakes and correct them beforehand – if that all makes sense. And even if I am solely responsible, the T I have come up with lessens that responsibility, because it doesn’t need to be that big)

…Is not letting mistakes mean anything about them (I guess with this one I mean not making it mean I’m stupid or an idiot or no good for the job or even no good as a human. I’m trying to think of other ways I could make it mean something about me though. Any suggestions welcome)

…Is not letting mistakes take up the whole of my day (this will mean accepting it and moving on. Not analysing from every angle what I could’ve/should’ve done, even if it’s not fully my fault)

…Is not letting mistakes stop them from trying again (I think this is a big one and would be used for my life outside of work too! But this one does feel hard to accept at the moment)

With the overwhelm, thank you for your help. I love those thoughts, especially the last one! I forget I have a choice. And although I say “it’s because I don’t know how to not feel overwhelmed” well, that T line is exactly how I guess.

Sometimes I feel work and trying to achieve things outside of work create this fast paced feeling, leaving me feeling like I don’t have enough time or don’t know what to do to utilise my time. Sometimes it creates a fuzz because I want to do X but feel like I should be doing Y and not knowing which one to focus on or accepting that I can’t do everything: work, hobbies, chores and work on goals as well as have the energy for all of that.

I especially find it hard when work creates this busy feeling. It’s hard to explain but I’ll be thinking ”oh gosh I have all these things to do at work” and the list of personal things as well “but I can’t do that after work because I have to work out or clean or do this or that” or I simply don’t have the mental space for it.
And I can never estimate how long something will take and then I run out of time. Or feel like I haven’t made enough use of my time. Like some days, I know I need to rest, but that’s then wasting time because I’m not working on goals I want to achieve and then that creates that running out of time feeling.

It feels like a cycle. And some of this I know is driven because I want to achieve something every day and because I feel like I need to be getting things done. It’s also driven because I create that overwhelm because of my thoughts mentioned above. One thing I do know is I need to learn to accept some things will take longer (like my TFC goals) and some days don’t feel successful but that’s ok because I’m just planting seeds (say some work days I feel like I’ve done nothing and they’ve passed me by, but that work just won’t have its pay off yet)

I’m going off on another route here but it’s because I’ve made success, time and life mean something really big. And I worry it’s slipping by me and I’m not achieving… because I’ve made success mean something. And when I say success I don’t just mean in work, I guess I mean in life too – like not letting mornings, evenings, weekends or time off be a waste to do something with it. I think this is a permission thing here as well as self acceptance. Like maybe I don’t want to do much outside of work, maybe it’s ok I just like to read my books and go to bed early. Maybe it’s ok one TFC project takes me months/yrs.

 

 

Answer:

We mean that you make the “mistake” a circumstance.  Then you look at what you’re thinking about it. For example, if I forget to get on a zoom call, that is a fact. I can judge myself and be mean about it. I can tell myself that I’m so terrible at following through with my schedule. I can think that everyone on the call will hate me now. I can think that it’s ok to be a human and forget things. I can think I need a better system to set reminders.  There are infinite options.  Each of these thoughts will have the whole rest of the model with feelings, actions and results. My overall experience of mistakes would be made up of how I react to them.

Your exploration is amazing. Keep staying open. Keep trying on thoughts and seeing what happens. Keep loving yourself while you work towards making the shifts you want to make. This is all just for fun. You don’t need to fix yourself. You are already whole and worthy. Right now.