Mistake grieving

Everyone makes mistakes – we know that. But that still does not mean it is easy to let go of it, forgive yourself and move forward.

A talented vet at work said something that has proven to be a golden nugget of advice – it’s okay to give yourself time to grieve; however, set a time limit.

Essentially, you allocate and schedule time to grieve the mistake or negative event.

Allowing time

The powerful thing about this is that you are allowing yourself some time to think about it, which is better than trying to pretend all is okay. You get to dissect it and determine what went wrong, and have some time to deal with the emotions; however, you set a strict time limit.

The time limit is important because rumination on mistakes can be very detrimental – you then start to add extra meaning to the mistake, then you create beliefs about yourself based on the story you created that are not real.

By setting a time limit on your grieving process you still face what happened, but reduce the time you think about it. This is important, as the longer you think about something the more weight and importance you add to it, and the bigger and more significant it becomes.

Shifting focus

The longer you focus on disempowering thoughts, the more likely it will lead to disempowering beliefs. Your thoughts are not you; they just happen – so this means you don’t have to own them. Therefore, you can control how much weight to add to them and what beliefs you generate from them.

Setting a time limit means you shift faster towards moving forward and focusing on what really matters, and what you must do next.

Next time you are tackling something difficult and need to process it, set a time limit. Let yourself identify the lesson, learn from it and deal with the emotion – but when the time is up you let it go, and forgive and forget.