How to Never Make a Mistake Again

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It'southward easy to get frustrated and self-critical when you repeat mistakes. Y'all might think you're the just i who does this, but you're not. Each person's specific patterns might differ, but we can all chronicle to the general concept. The tips in this mail utilise to a wide range of these types of recurrent mistakes, including:

• Overeating
• Ignoring your instinct to say no or speak up (and and so regretting it)
• Prioritizing the wrong things
• Buying things you don't need, because they're on sale
• Getting irritated with your kids, because yous're stressed out about work

Note: To place your self-sabotaging habits, check out this listing of 30 types. Once y'all know what y'all want to work on, consider these points.

ane. Vowing to never make a item mistake once more is the wrong approach.

After yous stuff yourself at Thanksgiving, y'all say "I'chiliad not going to practice that again. I feel terrible. It wasn't worth it." Notwithstanding, next year rolls around, and when you outset observe you lot're overeating again, you completely surrender and go dorsum for 2 more than slices of pie. Audio familiar?

Paradoxically, to alter recurrent patterns, it'due south often all-time to assume y'all will make the same error again. When you practice this, you can change your focus to developing practical strategies that will help you make less severe mistakes, less oft. This tends to be a more successful approach overall.

2. Develop strategies for prevention.

Lets say you know you end upward overeating when you've go overly hungry. What strategies do you demand to put in place to forestall becoming so ravenous yous scarf four staff of life rolls that are hanging effectually in your break room at work?

Let's take a deep swoop into how you lot might solve this problem. Maybe you know you should stop for luncheon at 1 p.grand., just y'all oftentimes end up not stopping until i:30 or fifty-fifty 2 p.m. You recognize that if you kickoff new activities in the 30 minutes earlier you plan to have your dejeuner, it increases the chances you'll get distracted and not go to tiffin on time. Therefore, you need to plan activities for the 12:30-1 p.m. period each solar day that won't run over time and cause the problem of going to tiffin belatedly. If you take some control over your schedule, what would be the types of work that would be predictable, not decumbent to running over time, and well-suited to your energy levels at that time of the day?

Hopefully you tin see from this case how personalized your strategies need to be. You need to accept a problem-solving arroyo that's tailored to your exact circumstances, one that's actually doable rather than aspirational. Your strategies should feel like a reflection of yourself and be things you'll desire to do, rather than seeming unappealing.

3. Put aside time and mental energy.

I know the instance strategy I've given in a higher place seems elementary, merely this is deceptive. Improving your patterns doesn't just happen. Success requires all of the post-obit: thinking about what strategies you lot could use, making a decision about what to attempt, implementing your ideas, and, often, troubleshooting aspects of your strategies that aren't working.

All of that requires mental energy. It isn't the type of thing you'll only practice while you're on the run at work, or you lot'll squeeze into your day at 10 p.thou. when you're tired, tapped out, and you'd normally be clicking around the cyberspace.

The reality of life is that nosotros don't ever have the time or mental infinite available to mindfully address self-sabotaging habits. That'due south normal, simply until you lot take that energy available, you probably won't do anything to turn around your patterns. What times during your twenty-four hour period/week do y'all take enough cognitive energy bachelor for self-strategizing?

4. Develop strategies for harm minimization.

Even the all-time prevention strategies are likely to fail at least occasionally. Therefore, you need a plan for what'due south known every bit harm minimization. This is the same principle that's behind the idea that it'south better for drug addicts to use make clean needles than muddy ones.

Let'southward think back to the problem of binging when overly hungry. Perhaps your strategy for when this happens might be to start your lunch by eating some fruit, salad, or something else where it's difficult to quickly stuff yourself with a large corporeality of calories.

Harm minimization is nigh having a condom net, and who wouldn't want to arrange that for themselves?

Consider making backup plans for when you've forgotten something. For case, I continue $20 in the glove compartment of my car in example I forget my pocketbook or get caught out by a store that's "cash only."

5. Understand your "Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions."

A concept I cover in my volume, The Healthy Listen Toolkit, is what's known as "Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions." I'll requite a quick overview of this concept here. Seemingly Irrelevant Decisions are decisions that set y'all downward the path towards a self-regulation failure, even though the decisions seem relatively innocuous. For example, y'all're currently cutting dorsum on overeating. You plan to host a political party, and although you don't intend to overindulge at your issue, you lot realistically know from past experience that whenever y'all host a gathering, information technology ever results in overeating leftover food. Or you sign your kid up for a grade that's across town on the busiest day of your workweek, knowing that if you accept to battle traffic at the end of a long solar day, you're likely to be very cranky and irritable. If y'all make a Seemingly Irrelevant Decision so subsequently realize it was self-sabotaging, you demand to be prepared to walk back that conclusion or put additional practical strategies in place. Don't think you lot can just rely on your willpower to not echo mistakes.

Summing Up

If yous focus on completely eliminating all mistakes from your life, this volition experience incredibly overwhelming. If yous instead aim to improve, there are lots of practical solutions you can try, and you'll likely feel much more than success. Addressing your patterns tin can even be enjoyable if y'all have a non-judgmental, problem-solving approach.

Note that I intend this post to apply to ordinary mistakes, and not things like committing crimes!

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201809/5-tips-how-stop-repeating-the-same-mistakes

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