Hey Friends! Today we are going to tackle the topic of mistakes. How do we move on from them, how do we learn from them, and how do we stop the spiral of toxic thoughts that bombard us when we mess up? 

We have to remember that the goal isn’t to try and go through life and never make a mistake. The goal is not perfection. But rather, the goal is to learn from our mistakes so we can grow, and do better, and hopefully won’t repeat the same mistake…or at least won’t repeat it as often. 

But if perfection is your goal in life, you will be incredibly frustrated because perfect isn’t possible on this side of Heaven. And coming from someone who is a recovering perfectionist, I understand all too well the feelings of  frustration that come with this. 

Mistakes are inevitable but it’s a choice on how you move on. You get to choose (remember you always have a choice). You get to choose to learn from your mistakes. But how do you do this effectively?? 

I am going to give you a very practical example that happened the other week. I shared this story with those who are in our book club which, btw there is still time to join. We are halfway through the book but the videos we watch and the discussion is amazing even if you aren’t all caught up. I would encourage you to join us! Or at least read the book for yourself. It’s called “Get Out of Your Head,” by Jeannie Allen. It’s such a great book and really aligns with everything we talk about here on the podcast. 

Back to my story. So the other week while I was in our book club zoom, my oldest, Parker, came barging in which he knows not to do. But he was insistent on finding a specific toy. I calmly tried to get him to leave and told him I would help him after but he started pitching a fit. Naturally I’m sweating because I’m trying to lead this book club all about mindset. I was on a roll right in the middle of a good discussion and then I was interrupted…and I don’t really do well recovering from that (I’m working on that). And so I had to mute myself to take care of the situation, meaning I started yelling. Which I hate. I hate raising my voice at my kids, it always makes me feel bad because I know there are better ways to communicate and teach communication. But anyways, he just wouldn’t stop. I ended up making him cry and even though I was on mute, I’m pretty sure everyone on the zoom saw me yelling. So then I’m feeling guilty that I yelled, feeling embarrassed that everyone saw me in a weak moment, and then my brain was scattered for the rest of the zoom (well, at least it felt that way to me. I’m sure the people on the zoom would have said differently because we are our own worst critics). But anyways, I started spiraling after that call – the thoughts of “I’m a bad mom” and “I’m a bad leader”, “who am I to lead this book club, and run a podcast all about mindset? I’m so unqualified for the task.” “I should just cancel the podcast, I don’t have anything good to share”… blah blah blah all the things. It all started running through my head – and then I had the one thought that can interrupt the spiral, and that is “I have a choice”.

And I stopped spiraling and I stopped having a pity party for myself and I stopped replaying the situation with Parker over and over again in my head. By the way, It’s not helpful to dwell in the past for the sake of beating yourself up. Don’t be a bully to yourself! Here’s the thing, you can’t go back and change the past BUT you can change what happens next.

And that’s what I decided to do. To take control of what I could and improve for next time. We are called to take every thought captive, and combat the lies we were telling ourselves with truth and then actually believe the truth! 

Let’s go through a few of those spiraling thoughts that I had and combat them with truth! 

Lie – “I am a bad mom because I yelled at my kid.”

Truth – “I made a mistake, but I am still an amazing mom, and the best mom for my child.”

Lie – “I am a bad leader.”

Truth – “I don’t have to have it all together to be a great leader. I can learn as I go and teach others what I’m learning.”

Lie – “Who am I to run this book club, or a podcast all about mindset, I am so unqualified for the task.”

Truth – “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. And he called me to this task so I will show up as my best and rely on him for the next right step.”

This is how we stop the downward spiral – We take our thoughts captive by declaring “I have a choice” and then we interrupt the lie with truth! And the key part here is we have to actually believe the truth and live in the new story we’re writing. 

The next time you make a mistake, here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you move forward and not repeat the same mistake over and over again. 

1. Do I need to humble myself and ask for forgiveness? 
   1. For me the answer was yes. I had to go to Parker and apologize for raising my voice at him. We had a long discussion about it. And he even apologized for his attitude and not listening. 
   2. Part of this forgiveness in your situation might be that you have to be forgiving yourself – The Lord washed away our mistakes as far as the east is from the west, he has washed us white as snow, and we need to grab hold of that. 
2.  How can I prevent this from happening again in the future? 
3. What safeguards can I be proactive about placing in my life to try and avoid this situation again? 
   1. For me, about 20 minutes before my call the following week I had a little talk with Parker, reminding him of our rule about when I’m on a call. And that if he needs something, Abby Lu, who’s our babysitter, can help him. 
   2. And then, I had him grab any of the toys he thought he might want from that room so he didn’t need to come in during the zoom. We talked about how if there is another toy he needs while I’m on my call he will need to wait until I’m done. 

It would have been really easy for me to get frustrated at the situation, to ignore it, to not ask for forgiveness, to not forgive myself, and then the following week I could’ve had the exact same situation happen because I didn’t tackle it. Because I wasn’t proactive at placing certain safeguards in my life in order to avoid the situation. 

So I talked with Parker about it, we came up with a plan and I had him grab his toys before the zoom call. It’s so easy for us as moms to get frustrated at certain situations or really anyone. We can get frustrated with how we react to something and really if we were to look at it, there are certain things that we can set up so that doesn’t happen again. That’s a really important step in not making the same mistakes. We have to ask ourselves, okay what lessons did I learn here? How can I prevent this from happening again in the future? And then putting those steps into place, into action, so that we don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.      

 There are so many scenarios, friends, in which we lose our patience, say something we shouldn’t, and then regret it. But we can learn to stop the spiral, interrupt it with the thought – I have a choice- and then combat the lie with truth!!! There are so many more examples of this in the book Get Out of Your Head. I really encourage you to read it! This episode was like the cliff notes version of the book. 

And remember friends, the goal is growth, not perfection!