Death will come to each of us. Have you thought about how you will feel when it's your turn? Did you imagine whether you would regret the way you lived your life?
Nurse Bronnie Ware from Australia cared for hopeless patients for the last 12 weeks of their lives. She took the liberty of recording the most common life mistakes that patients talked about and published them on the Inspiration and Chai blog.
Patients regretted that they worked too much, did not have the courage to express their feelings, and lost contact with friends.
If people are able to learn from other people's mistakes, this list will help those who still have time to change their lives. So that when our turn comes to leave this world, we will not regret anything.
1. I wish I had enough courage to live my life the way I want, not others.
Are you living the life you chose or the life others have imposed on you? Many people today build their lives based on other people's expectations. In any field, they choose what their partners or the general public approve of.
Even when choosing a life’s work, they first of all think about how their family, friends and acquaintances will react to it, and not about what they really like to do and what arouses their genuine interest.
As a result, they meet the expectations of everyone: parents, teachers, acquaintances - but they themselves feel constant pressure. Most of the time they feel cornered and unhappy.
If such a person tries to get out of artificial conditions and do what he has always secretly dreamed of, torrents of indignation will fall on him, he will lose good relationships with many acquaintances and relatives, and perhaps lose several friends.
How to avoid this
Stay true to yourself. If you have the courage to live the life you want, you will likely face criticism and disagreement. Calmly listen to the advice and opinions of others, but if they do not coincide with yours, do not pay much attention to them.
Just as they have the right to express their opinion, you have the right to ignore it.
You don't live to please anyone.
So don't be afraid to ruin your relationship with people who disagree. Winston Churchill said it very correctly: “Do you have enemies? Great. This means that you once stood for something in your life.”
2. I wish I didn't have to work so much.
In modern society, it is common to drown in water. People are busier now than at any other time in history, working 12 hours a day and even longer (yes, the situation for factory workers in the early 20th century was much worse, but then they had no choice, but we do).
Parents rarely see their children and shift their care to grandparents or hired nannies. People do not have time for relationships and other personal matters; work is always a priority, it rises above everything else.
Yes, work provides a means of livelihood, but for some people it becomes the main parameter of self-identification.
How to avoid this
There is no such thing as not having time for some activity. It's all about how you set your priorities.
And at the same time, many of these sufferers live in comfortable conditions, have a stable job, a decent income, a healthy social environment and a great family.
Despite the growing prosperity of society, people are not becoming happier - in fact, they are becoming unhappier. Why is this happening? Because the feeling of unhappiness does not depend on material well-being, it depends on a person’s opinion of what it means to be happy.
How to deal with it
Realize that happiness is each person's choice. Many people believe that happiness depends on certain factors. They think that they will be happy if they achieve this, that, the third, if their needs are met.
But happiness does not depend on achievements and does not come with them or after them. Happiness is something you can experience right now if you allow yourself to. You can be happy right now if you want it. The question is, will you want to?
How beautifully it is said in one capacious phrase:
These are the most common mistakes that almost every person makes in their life. What about you? Do you have any regrets about not speaking up, missing out, or not achieving something in your life?
We all make mistakes. There are no people who would never make a single mistake in their life. Moreover, we make mistakes every day! And there's nothing wrong with that. Many people wonder how to deal with their mistakes so that their self-esteem does not suffer. It's actually not difficult at all. You just need to know that only those who do nothing make no mistakes.
Quite often we notice the mistake ourselves. But there are times when they purposefully start pointing out to us that we did something wrong. How to behave in this situation?
How to deal with your mistakes without damaging your self-esteem
1. First, don't focus your attention.
If you made a mistake, you don't need to tell everyone about it. If no one noticed your mistake, why make sure everyone knows about it?
2. Analyze why this happened
What did you do wrong? Or did you not do something? Calm down. Think about how you can fix this, and whether it can be fixed at all. If it is impossible to fix, leave everything as it is. Is it possible to fix something that is impossible? But there is no need to worry about this. What happened happened. Maybe it will even be better this way?
3. How to respond to criticism and comments
If your mistake is pointed out to you, agree with it. There is no need to resist and prove that you are right, while fully understanding that you are wrong. You can admit your mistake decisively and quickly if this is what is required in a given situation. If the mistake is such that you are expected to think it over and understand it, then think about it, pretend that you admit the mistake, as if reluctantly, but agree with it. Keep in mind that when you make mistakes, complaints against you are quite justified. Therefore, you need to respond to criticism calmly, and not create a scandal.
4. Be sure to draw a conclusion from your action
If you want to take your mistakes easier, look at it as a source of new experiences and knowledge. This is extremely necessary to avoid similar situations in the future. Mistakes should bring experience, and a smart person should not stumble upon the same rake.
5. Don't worry
If you cannot change anything, there is no need to engage in self-flagellation. Accept that you can't change anything, get busy.
To relate to your mistakes more simply, you just need to be able to admit that you are wrong, and be able to not worry about what cannot be changed in any way. And, of course, you don’t need to be afraid to make mistakes - after all, everyone makes them. And be sure to learn from similar situations, so you can avoid the same mistakes in the future.
How to deal with your mistakes
For a long time to come, professional psychologists will earn their living by helping their clients understand their mistakes. After all, many to this day have no idea how to perceive them normally, and not like a large mass of people. After all, if you want to take a leading position in society, then you simply must know why a person reacts inappropriately to his mistakes, and also does not become like him.
Your experiences and emotions
If you learn to control them appropriately, it will help you look at your mistakes from a different perspective. In general, experiences and emotions are a kind of human behavior that has been formed since childhood. All children use them to control their parents, communicate with them, or protect themselves from them.
Emotionally, we are accustomed to reacting no longer to the mistakes themselves, but only to the alleged attack for committing them. This is a kind of defense, but mostly childish and groundless. After all, many to this day can make a funny grimace and not strain their brains. Seeing them once again, the question arises: So how can you spot a mistake in yourself?
To relate to your mistakes more simply, you should know that a person reacts to small stupidities when he simply has nothing to do. So if you want to get rid of this habit, follow these tips:
Don’t worry about trifles and simply occupy yourself with necessary and useful things;
Try to become a leader or a business person. After all, these are the people who have clearly defined goals. Well, if you live according to a clearly planned plan, then most likely you will not include emotions and experiences in it.
But it also happens that this does not help, then you simply need to resort to synthesis technology. It will help you gain confidence through practical exercises. You will need to periodically give instructions to your consciousness. For example, for some reason you forgot something, got it mixed up, did something stupid through negligence, and something else like that.
If you want to take your mistakes easier, then you just need to:
Quite calmly repeat to yourself: “I made a mistake, it happens to everyone”;
Then simply cross your arms and hug yourself by the shoulders and say: “Everything is fine!” These words sometimes simply work wonders, because, as many people know, we utter most curses when we lose conscious balance;
How to avoid mistakes at work and become a valuable employee?
Errors in work are normal. You shouldn't be afraid of them, but you should work on them. The less you make mistakes, the higher your professional level.
Carefully review the job descriptions and your employment contract. These documents are not only a formality, but also the fundamentals of your work. You must know the provisions of the instructions by heart and follow them in practice; in case of controversial situations, you can always refer to the document.
Buy a time management textbook. Or, as a last resort, download a manual on the Internet or read topical articles. Time management will teach you how to avoid mistakes in your work, manage your time effectively, so you can competently distribute work responsibilities and become a man of his word who does not miss deadlines for completing work and orders.
We advise you not to plan things for more than 50-70% of your working time. As a rule, unforeseen circumstances always arise, so it is wise to leave some extra time in advance. If you don’t do this, your schedule will be overloaded, you will start to get nervous, rush, and therefore make more mistakes.
To avoid mistakes, use a diary. This small personal book will save your head from a lot of unnecessary information that you absolutely need for work and generally don’t need in life. Why do you need to remember the date of concluding a contract for the supply of glass wool or the arrival time of the boss’s train? But you can’t forget about it! If you write everything down, you will be punctual and obligatory.
Do not neglect the achievements of civilization; use a voice recorder at important meetings (if you are not sure that you can record everything in a notepad). Listening to voice recordings takes some time, remember this. The recorded information will help you complete tasks clearly, competently and in accordance with the specified requirements.
Self-care is the foundation of health and success. To avoid mistakes at work, find time to eat properly, eat well, get enough sleep before starting the working day, and play sports. Good health is the key to high-quality work with a minimum number of errors. During your workday, take short breaks every two hours. If possible, change your occupation. Overwork is the most common cause of frequent mistakes; by eliminating it, you will work more efficiently.
Death will come to each of us. Have you thought about how you will feel when it's your turn? Did you imagine whether you would regret the way you lived your life?
Nurse Bronnie Ware from Australia cared for hopeless patients for the last 12 weeks of their lives. She took the liberty of recording the most common life mistakes that patients talked about and published them on the Inspiration and Chai blog.
Patients regretted that they worked too much, did not have the courage to express their feelings, and lost contact with friends.
If people are able to learn from other people's mistakes, this list will help those who still have time to change their lives. So that when our turn comes to leave this world, we will not regret anything.
1. I wish I had enough courage to live my life the way I want, not others.
Are you living the life you chose or the life others have imposed on you? Many people today build their lives based on other people's expectations. In any field, they choose what their partners or the general public approve of.
Even when choosing a life’s work, they first of all think about how their family, friends and acquaintances will react to it, and not about what they really like to do and what arouses their genuine interest.
As a result, they meet the expectations of everyone: parents, teachers, acquaintances - but they themselves feel constant pressure. Most of the time they feel cornered and unhappy.
If such a person tries to get out of artificial conditions and do what he has always secretly dreamed of, torrents of indignation will fall on him, he will lose good relationships with many acquaintances and relatives, and perhaps lose several friends.
How to avoid this
Stay true to yourself. If you have the courage to live the life you want, you will likely face criticism and disagreement. Calmly listen to the advice and opinions of others, but if they do not coincide with yours, do not pay much attention to them.
Just as they have the right to express their opinion, you have the right to ignore it.
You don't live to please anyone.
So don't be afraid to ruin your relationship with people who disagree. Winston Churchill said it very correctly: “Do you have enemies? Great. This means that you once stood for something in your life.”
2. I wish I didn't have to work so much.
In modern society, it is common to drown in water. People are busier now than at any other time in history, working 12 hours a day and even longer (yes, the situation for factory workers in the early 20th century was much worse, but then they had no choice, but we do).
Parents rarely see their children and shift their care to grandparents or hired nannies. People do not have time for relationships and other personal matters; work is always a priority, it rises above everything else.
Yes, work provides a means of livelihood, but for some people it becomes the main parameter of self-identification.
How to avoid this
There is no such thing as not having time for some activity. It's all about how you set your priorities.
And at the same time, many of these sufferers live in comfortable conditions, have a stable job, a decent income, a healthy social environment and a great family.
Despite the growing prosperity of society, people are not becoming happier - in fact, they are becoming unhappier. Why is this happening? Because the feeling of unhappiness does not depend on material well-being, it depends on a person’s opinion of what it means to be happy.
How to deal with it
Realize that happiness is each person's choice. Many people believe that happiness depends on certain factors. They think that they will be happy if they achieve this, that, the third, if their needs are met.
But happiness does not depend on achievements and does not come with them or after them. Happiness is something you can experience right now if you allow yourself to. You can be happy right now if you want it. The question is, will you want to?
How beautifully it is said in one capacious phrase:
These are the most common mistakes that almost every person makes in their life. What about you? Do you have any regrets about not speaking up, missing out, or not achieving something in your life?
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Anyone can make a mistake at work. However, how this error affects you and your work will depend on what you do next. The main thing is to approach the issue constructively and without unnecessary emotions - fear and self-doubt will only aggravate the situation. So as soon as you realize that you have made a mistake, analyze it and start acting. We offer 5 simple steps to ensure that your mistake causes minimal damage to your reputation and career.
1. Admit your mistake right away.
If you make a mistake that will affect other people or the company as a whole, don't try to hide it. Plus, you probably won't be able to fix it alone. So don't let a big problem get bigger. No matter how difficult it is, it is better to immediately tell your manager about the problem that has arisen. Explain in detail the reasons why it arose. Additionally, apologize to employees who may be directly affected by your mistake. Although your work mistake has nothing to do with your personal relationships, your sincerity will show that you care. This will help maintain authority in the team.
2. Offer a solution
Come to your manager not in panic and despair, but with a ready-made option on how to correct your mistake. This will significantly soften the blow to your reputation. “Today, to be considered a valuable employee, you should not present problems to your manager - provide ready-made solutions. Why? Because the managers themselves have many problems that they have to solve, which is why they hired you. So don’t become part of the problem, be a generator of solutions,” says Forbes magazine expert Lisa Quast.
Don't become part of the problem, be a generator of solutions.
Think through several options for how to improve the situation and outline the most successful one. Give your boss the reasons why this is the best option, but be prepared to immediately offer other options. Also think about answers to questions he might have. Show your determination to correct your mistake quickly and effectively.
3. Sacrifice personal time to solve a problem
Try to work on correcting your mistake during your free time - come early, stay late at work, don't go to lunch. Demonstrate in this way that you are ready to correct the situation as quickly as possible with minimal damage to the company.
4. Don’t beat yourself up and draw conclusions
This advice may seem trivial, but it's an important psychological piece: how you perceive your failure will largely determine your next steps.
Once you analyze the situation, draw conclusions and correct the mistake, leave it in the past and move on.
Carefully analyze what conclusions can be drawn from this situation. If you didn’t have time to do something, think about where exactly you miscalculated the timing; If you tried to do something, but the result disappointed you, think about what steps were wrong, what knowledge and skills you lacked. Once you analyze the situation, draw conclusions and correct the mistake, leave it in the past and move on.
5. Show more initiative
Once you've corrected your mistake, try to take a little more initiative and be more proactive at work. Firstly, this will help restore the manager’s trust, because he will see new positive results of your work and will quickly forget about the mistake. Secondly, it will help you too - success will allow you to quickly forget about your failure and will not allow the fear of defeat to slow down your career.
How do you feel when you are about to start something grandiose and new for yourself: finally create a project that you have been thinking about for a long time, leave a job that has long been boring and find another, start your own business? What is the strongest feeling that overcomes you? Enthusiasm? Determination? Ready for action? Why, day after day, do you keep putting off this important matter for yourself and not taking any concrete steps? Admit it honestly, you are just afraid.
At the same time, you can look for “good” excuses for yourself: to start, you need some resources (time, money, like-minded people). It's time to admit to yourself that these are just excuses. The most important thing that slows you down is fear.
You are afraid that what you have planned cannot be achieved or that the result will not meet your expectations. It is the fear that “everything will go wrong and nothing will work out” that forces you to postpone the implementation of plans for an indefinitely long period of time - in other words, never begin to implement your plans.
No room for error
Fear of any new endeavor is normal. Everyone experiences it when faced with something unknown at the level of instinct: “we need to see what is there, beyond the line, whether it is dangerous and how to handle it.” But if, despite fear, we nevertheless begin to act, everything is in order.
It’s another matter when fear turns into a powerful deterrent that prevents you from starting to act. If you stop controlling it, trying to stay in your comfort zone, this zone will become more and more narrow over time. It will become painfully scary to take any new action, because it creates stress and shock, and the person is already accustomed to avoiding these troubles at all costs.
At the same time, a person may think that everything is fine, and he is in complete control of the situation, not noticing that he has become a hostage to the fear of making a mistake. You can understand that fear is already completely guiding your actions and controlling your life by several signs:
- Fear of trying something unusual, new.
- Avoiding difficult tasks and projects.
- Procrastination and the habit of leaving things started unfinished. Often these signs are not a manifestation of laziness, but a consequence of the fear of “doing something wrong” and criticism from others.
- Perfectionism or the ability to do only what you are guaranteed to do perfectly.
Why does this kind of fear arise and how to overcome it?
The fear of making a mistake, like many other fears and complexes, is formed at an early age. If parents
- your work was often criticized, whether it was a school assignment, a craft project, or an assignment done “wrong”;
- severely punished for misconduct;
- categorically did not encourage initiative and required you to “ask permission” before you start doing what you have in mind -
they have done everything to create fear in you before any new endeavor. You have matured, but your “inner child” is still waiting for approval and permission to do what he wants. In advanced cases, such parental behavior can lead to OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder).
A public fiasco or other traumatic experience received at an early age can also play a significant role in the formation of this type of fear.
The next stage at which the fear of mistakes is reinforced (or formed in those who are luckier with parents) is school. The school grading system is structured in such a way that the student does not have the right to make mistakes: he does the work and receives material confirmation of the correctness/incorrection of his actions in the form of a grade that affects the overall final grade. In this case, of course, it is possible to “correct” the assessment, but it will still be taken into account when summing up the results. Such a system puts the child in conditions that are more stringent than in adult life: having done his work incorrectly, a specialist has the opportunity to redo it, correct shortcomings and receive approval. The child does not have such a right.
Moreover, at a certain point, the teacher’s attitude towards the student is formed on the basis of the amount of grades that he has already received during the educational process. Teachers are real people, and it is easier for them to “rank” students, dividing them into “weak” and “strong”. Once placed in the category of “underachievers,” it is extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for a child to get ahead from an outsider position. As a rule, this happens if the teacher or school changes, and the child begins to be assessed unbiasedly, “from scratch.”
At the same time, it is somehow forgotten that a mark is only a conditional marker that is used to mark the degree of mastery of a particular block of the curriculum. At the suggestion of teachers, and often parents, it turns into an end in itself for the child. He begins to panic about getting the next “pair”, because... knows for sure that this is an irreparable step on the way to becoming an outsider. And this “fear training” takes place over the course of 11 school years!
By the way, it has been noticed that school “excellent” and “good” students are more afraid of failure than “C” students. They are more trained in avoiding failed situations. It is not surprising that it is often students with average and even low achievements who become more successful people. They learned from childhood that failures and mistakes are normal and they stopped or never learned to be afraid of them. They simply did what they were really interested in, without participating in the general race of school perfectionists.
However, an adult differs from a child in that he is capable of being responsible for his own emotional state. This means that children’s fears and complexes can and should be dealt with. You can also learn to control your fear of mistakes. The most effective ways to do this
- Ability to set goals correctly;
- The ability to step out of your comfort zone.
Correct goal setting
Very often, fear of failure causes a person to have difficulty setting goals. However, it is easier to develop the skill of setting goals than to start fighting the fear of making mistakes. Correct goal setting helps a person figure out what exactly he wants, as well as find the optimal path to fulfill his desire.
It is believed that an effective way to motivate yourself to start moving towards a goal is visualization. However, research results show that if a person is in the grip of fear of failure, it is not recommended to use this technique: once he begins to visualize his success, he can become even more entrenched in his fears of failure and give up any attempts to implement his plans.
What's the best thing to do?
If the fear of failure is too great, start with small goals that you are sure to be able to achieve. However, the goal should not be too easy, otherwise you will not have the joyful feeling of overcoming that helps build confidence in your abilities.
For example, if you are planning to create a computer game, do not immediately set yourself the goal of achieving a result. Start by developing the simplest prototype.
It all starts in modern reality, then the hero goes to prehistoric times, kills a monkey, which was supposed to turn into a human in the process of evolution, and then goes into space. On a planet that lives according to the laws of fantasy, he magically moves to an alternative Earth, where intelligent beings evolved from dinosaurs, and from there he returns to the real world and saves his beloved.
But this concept was not destined to come true. Instead of this global project, the developers focused on one simple idea: a normal hero acts in an abnormal world, and the inhabitants of this world perceive themselves as the norm. Gradually, this idea transformed and acquired a visual embodiment in the form of a world after a nuclear apocalypse.
Will Smith calls this approach to planning the “one brick at a time” principle and illustrates it very clearly:
When you start building a wall, you don't think, "Now I'm going to build the tallest, grandest, greatest wall ever." You just start laying bricks. You put each one as best you can. Behind him is the next one, and another, and another... And so on day after day. In the end, it turns out that your wall is ready!
The “one brick at a time” principle allows you to gain confidence in your own abilities and concentrate on tasks that a person can take control of, without thinking about the frighteningly global scale of the entire project as a whole.
Of course, even small tasks should be related to your main goal. For example, this could be mastering certain skills, gaining knowledge that will be useful for the implementation of your big plan. Don’t forget to record the results, pay attention to each “brick”, then you will have more starting opportunities for analysis and setting more general tasks on the way to building your “wall”.
Learn to juggle
When IDEO founder David Kelley came across a book for aspiring jugglers, Juggling for the Complete Klutz by John Cassid, one thing struck him:
Almost half of this manual, unlike other similar books, was not devoted to teaching how to throw and catch balls; it did not tell how to measure the force of throwing and the weight of an object. It was devoted to how to develop the skill of dropping a ball. At first glance, this is terribly stupid. In fact, having gotten used to the fact that the ball will certainly fall, the brain stops perceiving this as a “mistake” or “failure.” He gets used to the fact that the ball falling is normal and stops sending alarm signals to the muscles, causing them to tense unnecessarily.
David Kelly decided that this approach is the most effective in general for any learning anything. Indeed, train yourself to think that mistakes are normal and inevitable.
A way to get out of your comfort zone
To ensure that getting out of your comfort zone doesn’t seem like something catastrophically important, start with “trifles.” For example, why not pick up a new hobby? Choose an activity that may interest you, but at the same time, is completely new and unusual, unlike what you have ever done before. It could be anything: drawing, playing an instrument, knitting, vocals, wood carving, wicker weaving - in a word, something that cannot be mastered immediately, within one or two lessons.
Naturally, in the process of mastering a new skill, you will encounter failures and mistakes. But this is just your hobby, which means there is no reason to make a tragedy out of every mistake. It’s worth trying again - you want to finally master this skill, right? This “non-serious” attitude will reduce the degree of anxiety about possible failures and will help you learn not to attach too much importance to mistakes. You will gradually get used to the idea that this is normal, as in the example of juggling.
The fear of feeling like a beginner and an amateur will gradually give way to the understanding that mistakes do not interfere with learning new things. Once you reach a certain level of skill, you will gain self-confidence. Over time, this feeling will spread to other, more significant areas of your interests.
And you shouldn’t assume that self-doubt and fear of failure are an innate character trait that cannot be overcome. You have already proven that you are quite capable of this when you acquired the skill of walking at the age of one to one and a half years. At first, you were also scared to stand on your feet and it hurt to fall - but you learned to walk!
After all, devoting at least a few minutes a day to something that can bring you closer to your dreams is a more effective way than just sitting and being afraid that nothing will work out.
P.S.
When we started working on SmartProgress, we were also tormented by doubts: is it worth starting? And yes, we were scared too. But fear is normal, you can simply ignore it and get on with things. In the end, “interesting” and “like” become stronger than “scary.” And now new users are joining the project, there are more and more of them, the process has started, and I want to continue without stopping halfway.
And confirmation that the resource we created is truly necessary and useful are letters from our users, grateful reviews and, most importantly, the realized goals of the project participants.
We are far from thinking that everything we have done is perfect, but the experience we have gained helps us develop, act more consciously and more clearly formulate the tasks that still need to be solved.
We are moving towards our goal, and we sincerely wish you to achieve the goals that you set for yourself.
It's not scary to start. It's scary to stay in one place without even trying to change anything.
