Giving Grace. One question I have been asking clients more often is “do you give grace to yourself.” Most client’s puzzled ask me what I mean by this question. I will reword the question asking, “do you give yourself permission to fail.” Still not clear the client asks me to elaborate further.
When you give your permission to fail you stay away from the perfectionist’s mindset and when a mistake is made, take responsibility but tell yourself it is not as big of a deal. You can always try again or try again in a different way.
Perfectionism is a fallacy in itself because it is based on the idea that there is a perfect solution when in reality there is not. An example would be a doctor who refuses to treat a patient with a certain medicine because it is not 100% effective. This medicine may have been effective for a large portion of patients but since the medicine did not work 100% every time, the doctor throws out this option when it could very well work. In this example for the doctor to give themselves grace would be if this medicine does not work to realize there are plenty of other options that would work. Giving yourself grace means being open to other possibilities instead of believing there is one perfect way that if it does not work the person is usually very hard on themselves.
A personal example I can give you was an experience I had last week when I was trying to move the host for my website from one place to another. I had in my head the exact steps I needed to take because of my previous experience in managing websites for work. Needless to say, I totally messed up the process. What I did not realize was that everything was already in place and I really did not need to do anything. I thought I could speed up the process when in reality I made things worse. In the moment I was really hard on myself but went to bed to wake up early the next morning to contact tech support to get settings reset which is what happened.
The next time you make a mistake, go easier on yourself. It is not worth getting angry since that prevents you from thinking clearer. Take responsibility for what you did and approach the problem from a different approach.
If you are looking for a therapist near you and a Google search is a great way of finding one. I happen to be a therapist in Charlotte, NC but am licensed to counsel anyone in the state of North Carolina. In Google, try looking for “psychotherapist,” “find therapist,” “therapy near me,” or even “counseling charlotte, nc.” If you feel like you have hit a wall you are not able to get past, call me at (704) 458-6298 or email me at jeffhelms@clearerthoughtspllc.com.
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