Mistakes are frowned upon and viewed negatively in many areas of life, and they can be uncomfortable, embarrassing, and difficult to deal with. — Photo by pexels.com
I RECENTLY heard a dance instructor and teacher, whom I have respected since I was a teenager, say something that struck me deeply.
“Normalize mistakes in class”: a simple phrase that served as a very good reminder for me.
When I make mistakes in things I take seriously, like dance training or competitions, I have a problem where I get really angry with myself.
As a child, I grew up putting unnecessary pressure on myself to be good at everything, and I became quite critical whenever I didn’t, even if it was something I was doing for the first time.
This is how I normally do many things:
- not make mistakes;
- not showing people that I failed at something, and;
- Make sure you do both.
And in terms of dance, I will do my best to hide my flaws from my peers as I begin to scrutinize every step I take, picking out where my technique seems off or when I miss a few counts throughout the piece.
Although this style of thinking works well to prevent errors from piling up during important performances, it often diverts my attention from what is truly meaningful in situations where being flawless shouldn’t matter much.
Because I hate not meeting expectations, whether personal or otherwise, I focus a lot of my energy on hiding my flaws. And when I messed up two counts of eight (if not more) of the piece I had learned that night during class in front of other dancers, it was a ‘nightmare’ for me.
Nowadays, in some parts of popular culture, people are starting to spread apology videos on YouTube or on their social media profiles detailing their mistakes and humiliating experiences.
More and more successful people are opening up about their setbacks and publicly sharing the mistakes they’ve made. And there is a lot of new information being produced about how “failure” can lead to greater empathy, changing viewpoints, learning experiences, and reset opportunities.
For once, we should be grateful to social media culture for facilitating the spread of these types of encouraging messages.
Mistakes are frowned upon and viewed negatively in many areas of life, and can be uncomfortable and embarrassing. It’s hard to deal with that.
However, it is more difficult to forgive ourselves when we commit them.
I still remember some of the stupid things I did in school, like proudly saying that “ice sinks in a glass full of water” in science class, or writing “the man has black hair” on my English homework. .
I also remember my teachers, in both scenarios, laughing (happily) at those mistakes, while I was on the verge of crying from embarrassment and thinking that I was ‘stupid’ for making those mistakes, and to make matters worse. Let other people see me doing them.
Here’s what I wish I’d told my younger self more often, and also one of my favorite quotes recently: “Give yourself some compassion.”
What advice would you give to a friend who was feeling embarrassed or worried?
I bet you’d be giving him a heartfelt motivational speech. That said, don’t forget that you should treat yourself with the same respect and peace of mind.
I remember saying ‘I’m such a bad dancer’ when my failure in class that night was simply missing a few steps after memorizing a one-minute piece in less than two hours (which, in case you don’t know, is an impressive number). ). achievement).
Also, I remember the other dance partners telling me, “It’s okay, I do the same thing,” in response to the caption of my Instagram story that expressed how embarrassed I felt about my poor performance that night.
Although they may not have realized it, their simple comments helped me feel truly understood and assured me that I wasn’t the only one who made mistakes from time to time.
Raising awareness is an important skill set that must be in tune with any essential part of the community, and normalization falls into this category.
I might add that it really benefits us to truly know that our mess, our worries, and our less-than-ideal parts are very normal. Especially in our social media society where everyone else’s life seems “perfect.”
We may relax a little when we believe that what we are going through is normal. We can treat each other more kindly and let go of some shame.
But this is the difficult part. You’ll have to allow yourself to feel some uncomfortable emotions if you want to convince yourself that making mistakes is normal.
Naturally, humans would prefer not to go through this.
The interesting thing about this is that negative emotions almost always follow a natural path. They build and strengthen, and then weaken.
Emotions pass quickly and your mistakes do not define who you are.
For everyone else who is just as hard on themselves, recognize your mistakes as normal and you will be able to engage in life in new and meaningful ways.
*The writer is a psychology graduate who enjoys sharing about how the human mind sees the world. For comments, send an email to (email protected).
