It’s so easy for me to be anxious about bring wrong or making a mistake. I also know I can be very harsh toward someone who wont admit to a mistake or error. It’s like all the accusatory gremlins come out to play, and they have to attack someone, so it’s you or the other guy.
Even now, I can hear a familiar accusation ringing in my ears, sometimes it’s my voice, sometimes it is someone else’s:
“If so-and-so weren’t so proud, they would just admit their mistake. Admit your mistake. How dare you be wrong and not fess up immediately and perfectly humbly. Just do it! Confess! MAKE RESTITUTION FOR YOUR SINS. KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GODS!!”
Okay, okay. That escalated quickly. Look who became the First Prime of Apophis when I wasn’t looking. Watch out humanity, there are glowy sci-fi torture sticks coming for the unworthy among us.
I often think of pride–or ego–as a positive trait, as something someone has that they want to protect. Like, that person has so much pride they don’t have room to be wrong. As if pride were a commodity they owned. And that it’s my job to take someone down a peg–or even take myself down a peg–so that I behave “correctly”.
But I actually think our anxieties about being right/being wrong are a little more complex. I know at times there are a Rolodex of fears and concerns that roll around in my brains and make it seem riskier to admit when I’m wrong or mistaken. Let me give voice to a few here. I wonder if any of them resonate with you.
- If I made a mistake, doesn’t that mean I should have tried harder?
- If I say I’m wrong, aren’t I admitting that I’m irresponsible?
- If I were really competent, I would have got that right.
To sum up: If I were better, I would have done better. I didn’t, so I’m not the person I think I am. In other words, a private little shame spiral. A mistake or an error is no longer about a finite action I did that’s wrong, it’s a personal attack on who I am as a person.
At this point in my life, I can recognize perfectionism when it rears its ugly head. But how do you combat that? I find it helpful to practice exercises that allow me to recognize when I’m wrong without also catastrophizing that error. For instance, reminding myself:
- It’s okay that I didn’t know that, it’s fine for me to have made a mistake there.
- I don’t need to know everything, so its okay for me to learn here.
- I am perfectly able to learn. So I can grow through this experience.
- I have the same right to learn and grow and make mistakes as everyone else does.
- (More future looking:) I trust myself to make corrections if I need to, so I don’t need to worry.
- I love learning anyway, so this is one more thing to add to the list for today.
- I don’t need certainty here because there is enough grace.
- I don’t need absolutism here, because God is with me, and that’s enough.
Perhaps you’re like me and your personal history threatens to let shame complicate otherwise simple events in the present. What might have seemed initially like a small thing may loom much larger. For myself, I know I’m a bright, assertive, and fairly cautious person. I also don’t mind defending myself when I feel a criticism or expectation is unfair. But part of my own sensitivity to criticism comes from being too exacting with myself in order to avoid criticism from others. To lessen the burden of that, I now choose to make deliberate practice of “de-escalating” the automatic habits of perfectionism and criticism.
Personal example: I tend to be too hard on myself when I don’t know what to do. I usually think of myself as being up to any task life throws my way (with a little elbow grease and a little effort), so when I’m thrown for a loop and my natural wisdom and resourcefulness don’t seem to be enough, I can be fairly harsh with myself when I’m in that space of not knowing. It made me feel vulnerable, weak, helpless, and stupid. It took me a long time to accept that there was grace in honest ignorance, and the world was not always as cruel a teacher as I had supposed. I can’t say that is a comfortable position for me, but it is now something I can work through.
It can be challenging to practice humility, honesty, and self-compassion together. There’s genuine work that has to go into a fair assessment of what a mistake or error means if there are other people involved, and if those folks are healthy and trustworthy, that’s fine. Prayer can help too. But for a minor mistake, I need to give myself permission to say: “I did make a mistake, and I will fix it, but I do not need to apologize a thousand times for this mistake. Once is good enough.” Not all mistakes are catastrophes…in fact, most of them aren’t. I have to give myself permission not to be held hostage by past mistakes, whether it is myself or another person who is trying to keep me captive.
In short, when I’m honest I know that what we call “proud” behavior in someone is is oftentimes smallness, constriction, and fear. I am proud when I am poor. In order to be humble, I have to practice freedom and giving myself the room to be the fine and fallible little critter that I am. I need to practice richness. There is no shame in being finite or fallible. This is what the Lord has made.
