Ever heard the old saying, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?” You’d think we would learn from our mistakes but those I coach report they seem to go around the same mistakes over and over again like they are on an emotional carrousel. I’ve done it myself more times than I care to admit.
If we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again, it can be damaging to our emotional health in many ways. Here are a few:
1) We conclude we are in some way incapable. If we continue to fall into the same hole, it has a way of telling us we were meant to be in the hole.
2) We learn to accept living in the hole. When history—even mistake history—repeats itself, over time we accept it as truth and conclude we have no options or control over it.
3) We stop trying to get out of the hole. When we decide it’s our plight to be in the hole, we stop expending our energy to climb out of the hole and settle in for a lifetime of living in the hole. It becomes our culture. Our way of life.
Being doomed to living our life in the hole we keep falling into could not be farther from the truth. We have complete control over whether we settle for life in the emotional foxhole, or moving forward in the direction you want to go. Put these tips to work in your life and take back your life.
Know you were not meant to exist in the hole. God created you as entrepreneur of your emotional career. You get to create your own emotional destiny. That’s the way God planned it. Don’t settle for working on the production line in the emotional factory when you could be running your own emotional empire. You call the shots.
Accept the fact that you will make mistakes. Unless you are not a human being, making mistakes comes with the territory. You’ll make tons of them, but here’s the thing that will take you off the merry-go-round. Stop! Take time to assess your mistake and what caused it. Then put that on your to-not-do list. Avoid that in the future. Unless you put the mistake and its cause in the forefront of your mind, you will mindlessly wander back into the hole.
Always carry a shovel. A shovel is one of the most important things you can own. It’s one of the most versatile tools in the shed, and having one gives you all sorts of choices. That’s true with your emotions as well. You always need to carry an emotional shovel with you. What is that? Depends on you. My emotional shovel is actually a kit containing motivational quotes, motivational books, my journal and my Bible… and my car keys for that ride in the country that always digs me out of the emotional mulligrubs.
Don’t be fooled by mistakes. They are a result of what you did, not a result of who you are. Don’t confuse the two. Live life learning from your mistakes and finding ways to keep moving forward and around the landmines that will keep you in an emotional hole. Remember that you are completely in control. Do what’s best for you.
What are some of the mistakes you keep repeating? What can you do to change that today? I’d love to hear from you. Email me at reba@mybooktherapy.com.
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Reba J. Hoffman is the MBT Member Care Coach. She has a PhD in clinical counseling and is the founder and president of New Hope Institute of Counseling. Reba uses her gift of encouragement to help writers overcome negative emotions so they can live their dream of being a writer. Her works appear in publications such as Running for the Woman’s Soul by Road Runner Sports and The Good Fight by Donna Hicken. She is the author of My Book Therapy’s Dare to Dream, a Writer’s Journal. Contact her at reba@mybooktherapy.com.