One of the biggest causes of stress, anxiety, and negative emotions of any kind is our inability to cope with our mistakes. Even though it is a well understood fact that we are all fallible, a fact that is easily understood logically, making even the smallest of mistakes can cause an instant upsurge in blood pressure. Some people are able to see and accept the mistakes that others make without much trouble but they tend to fly off the handle, emotionally speaking, whenever they themselves make a mistake.

While I could go on and tell you about the fact that we are all imperfect creatures, that we all make mistakes, and that these mistakes are a natural part of our daily process, I doubt that it will help too much when it comes to forgiving yourselves for the mistakes that you make. The reason for this is that even though people can logically understand that mistakes are a natural part of life, they can’t seem to be able to reconcile the mistakes of others and the mistakes that they themselves perform. That is when people understand the concept that mistakes are a natural thing, what they are really doing is accepting the fact that others will make mistakes and that these mistakes are natural. It is much more difficult though for them to accept the fact that they will make mistakes and that these mistakes are natural.

See there is the real crux of the matter; accepting the fact that YOU will be making a lot of mistakes often

Why is it so hard for us to accept this? The reason I believe is that whenever we try to understand something logically, we tend to go through the process like any academic process; we tends to put it on the blackboard as it were and look at it in a detached fashion. We put all the facets of this particular problem outside of ourselves, structure these facets, and then figure out how they fit together to create this particular problem. While this is a very good way to understand logically why it is that we all do make mistakes, this is not a very good way to realize EMOTIONALLY that what we are seeing on the board is going to happen to us as well.

What you must do therefore is to begin to realize and to accept as fact the inevitable conclusion that you will be making mistakes. In order to do this you must consciously take the realization that you logically came to and put yourself into that scenario that you had previously only conceptualized on that imaginary board in your mind. By doing this you will objectively understand that you are not a detached being merely observing a logical conclusion but an actual person who will be affected completely by the logical conclusions that you have made.

Basically what you need to do is to take the last step in your logical reasoning. This step involves the conscious realization that you are the one that will be making those mistakes. That you will be making mistakes often and that you need to forgive yourself for these mistakes because they are natural.

Let me repeat:
you will make mistakes, many mistakes, and this is natural. It actually will help you to get better at everything that you want to do

I’m not asking you to make an emotional realization, because these emotional realizations can only happen through time and personal experience. What I’m saying is that you need to accept the final aspect of this logical conclusion that you are making and by doing so you will allow yourself to make mistakes without so much emotional trauma. When you can do that you will have taken a big step towards self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is one of the most powerful things that you can do in order to relieve the stress and anxiety in your life. While many systems out there tend to really advocate a change in emotional stability, it is my personal opinion that in order to make deep and lasting change in your life you first need to make an objective realization and then through time develop the emotional stability that comes along with that realization. To just work on your emotional states will only have you bouncing back from one emotional state to another without ever fixing the problem at its root; which is usually a belief that you hold. These beliefs can best be tackled by using logical and objective thought so that you develop a natural inclination towards your desired goal. Essentially you are not fighting yourself you are expanding yourself and giving yourself direction consciously.

Incorporating self-acceptance can make a huge difference in your life. Realizing that mistakes are natural and that you personally will be making many mistakes as a natural result of your existence, can be one of the best things that you can do for yourself.

• Accepting the fact that you will make mistakes, accepting yourself, can be very helpful. When you do this you are inspired to correct any behavior that you do not like or that you do not think was correct. If you make a mistake and you can’t handle that fact emotionally, then you will not try to correct these mistakes but you will try to ignore them instead, cover them up. By accepting the fact that you make mistakes and therefore accepting yourself as who you are, you will quite naturally take whatever steps are necessary to correct your behavior. Without personal recrimination you will logically or intuitively try to find a way to correct the mistake so that in the future you are able to function better. You will be a better problem solvers when you are not so emotionally distressed.
• When you accept the fact that you do make mistakes, you are accepting reality. Since there are no perfect people, at least that I know of, then it is quite unlikely that you are the one true perfect being on Earth. If you look around, is there any person that you know or have heard of the has never made a mistake? Since the answer to this question is no, then why is it that you expect that you will never fail while others are allowed to do so?

Mistakes are there so that we know the right way to go. Through mistakes realize that what we have done was not correct and are therefore given an answer as to how to proceed next time. If we make a mistake that next time around then we are told again that this too was a mistake and we must therefore correct our course by going in a different direction. In other words;

mistakes are our friends!

Accept the fact that YOU are going to be making many mistakes throughout the rest of your life. Forgive yourself for these mistakes and accept yourself. Develop self-acceptance and through this one act, relieve yourself of much of the stress, anxiety, and negative emotions that can make your life a difficult thing to bear.