I Screwed This Up
– Monday Mindset –

Today’s Monday Mindset: So, I Screwed This Up

I had this meeting two days ago and I realized as soon as the meeting had finished, I hadn’t led well. I didn’t prepare well enough in advance, and it was one of those where you just feel like ‘ah geez’.

It’s so easy to say to yourself, “man I suck.”

I don’t know if you’re anything like me when you reflect back and realize you didn’t do something well or you didn’t show up the way you wanted to show up, or you didn’t say what you wanted to say – easy to beat yourself up.

We tend to be our number one critic and not our number one fan. We don’t do it with friends, I mean if our friend doesn’t show up for something and do we tell them you know what, ‘you sucked’? Of course not.

You’d never say that yet we do say it to ourselves. It’s so easy to be our worst critic.

And if you tend to be your worst critic, my challenge to you today is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend. The way you talk to a friend is generously with a level of grace that is going to show thoughtfulness and care, not judgment.

So anytime you find yourself putting you down, or just saying things that are belittling to yourself about you – catch yourself. Decide right there in the moment I’m going to talk to myself differently. I’m going to talk different.

Some of us need to just make it a habit to catch ourselves in the moment and then talk different. Learn from it. Learn from that moment. You could do better next time. Learn from it and you will do better next time. So put that into practice.

Choose to be generous with yourself. Extend grace to yourself. Everything is a learning opportunity.

That meeting that I didn’t lead well? It’s a learning. I’m going to grow and get better from it.

If you can take this approach, it will help you immensely because you won’t be beating yourself up all the time living in the past for what didn’t happen.

You’ll be able to live present because you’ve let go of the past. Treat yourself the way you would treat any good friend. It sounds easy to do but it’s a tremendous form of loving yourself to talk generously to yourself. Put that into practice today.

That’s your Monday Mindset!