Your Mistakes Are Your Friends

Are you hard on yourself when you don’t do as good a job as you believed you should have done?

When you make a big mistake … How do you feel?

What do you tell yourself? Do you beat yourself up verbally?

How do you cope? Do you hit the bottle or slug down a quart of ice cream?

Or … Can you be honest with yourself without doing more damage?

Way back in the olden days of Europe, some kings in their royal courts kept a court jester. His job was not merely to entertain, but – in an age when the king never knew whom to trust – the jester was required to tell the truth to the king. If he merely acted like a yes man, he was likely to be punished. The jester was given express permission to be honest, as long as he did so without being cruel. And even better, if the jester delivered the truth with humor. In this way, if the king was unsure of his next move, he could always count on at least one person to give honest feedback, because the jester had no political stake in the outcome – except for the king to survive.

Mistreating yourself after messing up is a sure path to Stress-ville. But I wonder if it’s possible to give yourself honest feedback without making yourself feel worse – sort of like being your own court jester – no matter how badly you failed. And you don’t even need to have a wacky sense of humor.

Humor or no humor, could you develop the courage to be bluntly honest, but not cruel? And able to laugh at yourself, as well. If so, how would it change your life?

I believe I can prove to you that you can learn to get past your failures and do what it takes to succeed. If you doubt this to be true, I challenge you to contact me at 219 309 3928 for a free consultation.