The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.I work very hard at accepting that mistakes happen. I make them, someone I was depending on makes them, everybody makes mistakes. One of the things that I learned in counseling is that I totally freak over the smallest mistake. I agonize and try to fix the unfixable and sometimes the inevitable. To help myself over come the debilitating reaction to making mistakes I bought a book of Sudokus and then did them in ink. If I made a mistake I would put a big X across the page and move on to the next one. I became much better at doing Sudokus but I still freak over every mistake. Today someone I worked with assumed I knew that I would be driving to several locations to pick up people that I didn't know. Without prep time, I got lost. (Actually with prep time I can still get lost, I just leave early enough to get lost and still be on time.) So I was late then I couldn't find one of the people then to drop them off the line of cars waiting would have taken an hour so I had to replan on the fly and solve the problem without any real idea what to do or how to accomplish and impossible task. Take a deep breath...I can't fix the problem. I talked myself through the rising panic. The fear of making a mistake can paralyze as completely as actually making the mistake.
3 comments:
That actually sounds like someone else's mistake that you solved on the fly!
I was raised by perfect people who, to this day, never make a mistake. Now, I realize I don't have to be perfect for anyone, especially not myself. What a relief and the dust bunnies under the bed feel much safer!
Glad you muddled through!
Hugs P/M
Thanks mulderfan, I hadn't thought of it this way. Interesting perspective.
Good for you working it through.
It's no surprise you're afraid of making a mistake when you were punished for the slightest infraction, and sometimes the infractions were imaginary. How does one plan against such human-created impossibilities?
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