How To Stop Reinforcing Your Mistakes

The "Screw-Up Survival Guide": How to Stop Reinforcing Your Mistakes is a podcast that explores the power of self-compassion and challenges the harmful habit of labeling ourselves based on our missteps. We'll delve into the psychology behind why we tend to beat ourselves up, discuss practical strategies for reframing our mistakes as opportunities for growth, and ultimately discover how to cultivate a more forgiving and empowering relationship with ourselves.

Join us as we navigate the messy, beautiful journey of being human and learn how to rise above our screw-ups with grace and resilience.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I want to ask you a very important question and how you answer it will actually shape how well your life goes.

There's a story I heard recently about a man who had to sit before the U.

S.

Congress and answer some questions.

He was caught in a lie in a previous time of his life and the congressman that was interviewing him said,

Sir,

You lied so that makes you a liar.

Do you agree with that?

Or let me put it another way.

If someone does something nefarious,

Say they attack someone,

Say they rob from someone,

Say they hurt someone,

Does that make them an attacker?

Does that make them a robber?

Does that make them a hurtful person?

Well,

If you answered yes to any of these questions,

Then unfortunately I'd have to say there's a high probability that you probably will struggle in life.

But you may be asking,

Why would calling someone else who does something really awful towards another person,

Like saying raping them or killing them,

And calling them a rapist or a killer,

Why would that impact my life?

I didn't do that to anyone.

Here's the big difficulty.

When you label someone or label yourself,

There's a strong possibility that you're going to reinforce whatever that label is.

After all,

Someone who lies and is a liar probably will continue to lie because they're a liar.

And they're going to hear that in their head.

And people may be telling them that and that will reinforce their behavior.

For example,

There's been studies done on prisoners who get released from here in the United States.

And what they found was within three years,

Two out of three of the former prisoners are re-arrested.

And more than 50% are incarcerated again.

This process of previously convicted criminals being re-arrested is known as recidivism.

Now the question is,

Why does this happen?

Why do they keep ending up in prison?

I believe,

Here in the US at least,

We are very harsh on people that commit crimes.

If you know someone who's perhaps been in prison,

Or maybe have been in prison yourself,

You'll know or you will have seen how harshly these men and women can be treated.

It's very sad.

But what's happening is,

They are clearly being labeled as whatever they're in prison for.

A robber,

A murderer,

Whatever the crime may be.

And then when they get out or even while they're in prison,

They're hearing in their head over and over again,

I'm a robber.

I'm a criminal.

So what do robbers and criminals do?

They keep doing the same things they did before.

Now you may be thinking,

But Dr.

Puff,

I've not done things like that.

I'm not even close to being a criminal.

If I've got a speeding ticket,

It's a rarity in my life.

True,

That may be the case.

But here's the problem.

When we label people,

Whatever we do to others,

We will do to ourselves much harder.

Because in our head,

We're going to be talking to ourselves all day long.

And if we label misdeeds,

Like lying,

And call people that lie,

A liar,

Then anyone who lies is a liar.

And have any of us gone through life and never lied?

I doubt it.

But let's say maybe,

Well,

I don't lie very much,

Dr.

Puff.

That's good.

But you probably,

On a tiresome day when you're exhausted,

Do things you wish you hadn't done.

Like maybe you yelled at your kids.

Maybe you said something unkind to your wife.

Maybe you were on the phone and weren't very kind towards someone who was trying to help you out through customer service.

We all have days like this.

What gets us in trouble is not that we make mistakes.

We all make mistakes.

What really gets us in trouble is when we label those mistakes as who we are.

And here's where labels can be very dangerous.

If we assume that we meet someone and they do something nefarious,

Like lie,

And we label them as a liar now,

The problem with that is we're going to do that to ourselves.

Yes,

They did lie and they did an act of lying,

But we don't know them to label them as a liar.

And even if they are a liar,

Do they lie all the time?

So what are they then if they don't lie all the time?

Are they half truth,

Half lying person?

Do you see how it gets very confusing when we label people?

We're going to get in trouble with others when we label them.

But more importantly,

We're going to struggle when we label others.

Because then when we make our mistakes,

Which we're going to do,

We will label them and we will attack ourselves.

And that will conform,

That will create a psychology of repetition.

Because whatever we hear in our head all day long,

We become.

If we look in the mirror and say,

You're a liar,

You're a liar,

Guess what?

We are going to lie.

This is probably most easily seen with our children or when we were a child.

If someone we love labels us,

For example,

Says,

Oh,

She's so smart,

Or he's so athletic.

If we get those labels and we take them on,

There's a higher probability we will be athletic and we will be intelligent or act intelligently at least.

But when we get labeled negatively,

The same is true.

And we see this all the time with children.

Call a child a slob,

And guess what?

They'll be a slob.

But as we get older,

Hopefully,

We are able to differentiate between taking responsibilities for actions and defining ourselves by our worst moments.

And as much as we're affected by labeling others,

We're also positively affected by being compassionate towards others.

Because when we are more patient with others,

When we really try to realize that the reason they're active heinously isn't because they're a heinous person,

It's because they're having a bad day or a bad moment.

So when we're more compassionate and understanding towards others,

We'll also be more self-compassionate towards ourselves when we have a bad day or don't act in a way loving towards others or at our best.

Before I go on,

I'm not condoning other people's behavior,

Especially when it's hurtful towards others and creates harm in our world.

We need to do things to protect ourselves.

We need to do things to protect others.

But do we need to necessarily,

When someone does something nefarious,

Do we need to label them?

Or can we instead look for the compassion there so that when we,

For whatever reason,

Are having a very bad day,

We can be self-compassionate towards ourselves and see these moments as growth opportunities and saying,

Oh,

I have things to learn here.

I need to make some changes in my life so I don't continue doing these deeds.

But as much as we're not going to excuse other people's behavior,

We're also not going to dismiss our own misguided behavior.

We're going to look at it.

We're going to say,

What happened here?

What caused me to act this way?

What led up to this moment?

When we apply understanding to misdeeds,

What we'll find is we'll get awareness into what is causing it and then be able to make proactive choices to change the precipitating causes that got us there.

If we lose the labels and really realize we're not any label we can come up with,

Then we create an environment where we can change,

We can grow,

We can develop.

But once we label ourselves,

There's a high probability we'll stay stuck.

Now,

There are some of you listening right now that may be thinking,

Well,

Dr.

Puff,

You don't know what I've done.

I'm truly a wicked,

Horrible person.

And if you knew my story,

You would label me as such.

I wouldn't.

I would ask what got you there?

Because there would be things that got you there.

I wouldn't excuse your behavior.

I'd help you understand it and learn from it and grow from it and stop attacking yourself.

Instead say,

What can I learn from this?

How can I grow from this?

How can I become a better person?

Because if I label myself,

I'm going to stay stuck.

And clearly,

I don't like what I did.

So I best stop labeling myself.

I'm not going to excuse my behavior,

But I am going to grow from my behavior.

But this is where how we treat others is going to be how we treat ourselves.

So if we're harsh,

If we're judgmental towards anyone,

Not excusing their behavior,

But instead quickly judging their behavior and judging them and labeling them without knowing the whole story,

We will ultimately do the same things to ourselves.

Again,

I'm in no way condoning that we put up with nefarious deeds from others.

Of course not.

But I think there's ways that we can do it without being hateful.

I think there's ways we can do it so that when we mess up,

Which we will,

We can find the self-compassion there towards ourselves too.

Again,

It doesn't excuse our behavior or others.

It just means at least in our case,

We can do things to learn from it and grow from it.

We can't help others do that.

That's their journey.

And the high probability is they probably won't change.

But we're listening to this talk right now,

Probably because we want to change.

We want to be better by realizing the power of our thoughts and realizing that compassion,

Self-forgiveness is a beautiful way to live life.

And it's a lot more effective than hate and labeling others on ourselves when we mess up.

Yes,

People lie,

But it does not make them a liar.

And if we have done something really bad in the past that we're very ashamed of,

It doesn't mean we are that event.

We did something that we can grow from,

That we can learn from.

Don't we all have stories where something really bad happened that we really messed up in the past,

And that was a pivotal moment of growth for us?

Our screw-ups are just part of a larger journey of self-discovery and growth.

When we mess up,

That's an opportunity for us to understand ourselves better.

What caused this?

How do we learn from it?

What is feeding this?

And how do we stop feeding these negative thoughts,

These labelings that are getting us in trouble and causing us a lot of animosity towards others too?

When we let them go,

What we'll find is a lighter heart,

A happier heart,

A more joyful heart.

And instead of seeing the world as a wicked,

Evil place,

We'll begin to see the beauty and the joy and the love in our world.

Because it's there.

We can see it if we look for it.

And yet again,

The great news is if we look for it outside,

We'll also begin to look for it inside.

Our thoughts are what we have to deal with all day long.

If we judge others,

We will judge ourselves,

And far more harshly.

If we are compassionate,

Loving,

Understanding towards others,

There's a much higher probability that we'll be loving,

Understanding,

And compassionate towards ourselves.

We are going to make mistakes,

But they're growth opportunities.

They're things that we can learn about ourselves.

Say,

Oh,

I did this because of that in my past.

I'm going to change that so I won't repeat that.

We may lie sometimes,

But then we look at the situation and say,

How do I not do this again?

We can change our behavior.

This does take work.

This does take effort.

But when we let go of the labels,

Whether good or bad,

Then what will happen is we'll begin to flow with life and be in the moment and find that our actions and that our reactions are ones of kindness,

Of ones of joy,

And ones of happiness.

And by steeping ourselves in the present moment,

We'll find that life,

Instead of being a horrible experience,

Can be a beautiful adventure one day at a time,

One breath at a time.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you 🌷

That was amazing! Forgiveness begins with forgiving ourselves!

Thank you 🙏