Beating ourselves up is something we are all familiar with, a little too much maybe! Often the focus in on all the things we could have done better, the ways we could have sounded smarter or acted better. This can be a source of great lesson for us to improve, but as with all things — moderation is really the key. If you beat yourself up too much that you paralyze yourself from ever trying anything new, that is counterproductive to learning and growing. There is a way you can train your brain to look at the lessons while also acknowledging what you did right.
Acknowledge the things you did right
Like I said, moderation is really the key, so constantly talking about how great you are is bound to cause an inflated ego. That isn’t good! The idea, then, is to gently remind yourself of the effort you put in the situation despite the fact that it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. By doing this, you realize that everything is not so black and white. There are things that can be good and have some aspects for improvement; and be bad with some good moments in them.
By training your brain to look at the things you got right, and telling yourself you’ll do better next time, you are training your brain to look for opportunities and areas of improvement rather than pitfalls in your life. “Areas of improvement” and “pitfalls” might correspond to the same things, but the way you phrase it matters. It defines how you view yourself and the more you can look at these as chances to try to be better, the happier you will be.
This is referred to as the Tetris Effect, which connects how the brain works subconsciously to how we constantly think and feel about things. To put simply, if you are always looking for ways that you are a victim for the circumstances, the more evidence you’ll find to support this claim. And this is a pretty unhealthy way to live life.
The good news here is that you can rewire your brain to look for the positives. It takes a small intervention to look at the positive side of things and remind yourself that you still have plenty of chances to do right.
View obstacles as stepping stones rather than roadblocks and you’ll find that the universe is building you up rather than pushing you down.
