transformyself

Forgive Yourself First | Maria Shriver | The Open Field Network
Tips for Transformation
Forgive Yourself First

By Steve Truitt

Image credit: XsurrenderXtoX on DeviantART

Are you hard on yourself? Do you harp on mistakes you made much longer than you should?

Do you find yourself replaying your blunders over and over in your head - wondering what you could have done differently until the memory of that mess up consumes you? Does letting yourself off the hook seem like the most impossible thing to do?

Yes, I have struggled with the same issue. In my case, as a coach and speaker who prides himself on high levels of integrity and performance, when I make a mistake you can bet I come down hard on myself.

And that's the trap! Being hard on yourself only serves to set you up for failure again, and the cycle continues.

After all, anger and resentment show up in places they don't always belong. Take it from me: not letting things go can hurt many parts of your life.

About 7 years ago, I was involved in a dispute with a cable channel that had hired me to travel the country and talk about really cool gadgets.

It was a lot of fun, and the representative of the cable channel -- we'll call him Tony -- promised me that this particular project would be a defining landmark for me as well as them.

All they needed from me was one hundred percent of my time, so In order to accept the job, I had to release other work that I had been doing for years - the backbone of my income - based on the promise that not only would this job replace my income, it would triple in two-to-three years.

Excited by the opportunity and the promise of getting to that next level, I bit. But the two-to-three year promise only lasted seven months, and I was ultimately left with no more work, and no job to go back to.

On top of this, the company was not paying me the final payment they owed me, and I was forced to hold out on my last assignment for them until I received the final installment. This hold out caused animosity between my camp and theirs and it got ugly.

At one point I was so frustrated with the broken promises and the jobless situation I was left in, I wrote a very angry, strongly-worded letter to Tony. I accused him of baiting and switching me, ruining my career, and making it impossible for me to feed my children.

I called him callous and selfish and a liar. All the rage I had built up over the disappointment of the let down and the fear of the unknown moving forward came spilled out on to the page.

I never sent the letter to him, but instead shared it with my career manager at the time who originally suggested I write it just to blow off steam.

This was another mistake I would come to regret because he ended up sending the letter to Tony without my knowledge and any reputation I might have built as a loyal, hard-working team player went right out the window, replaced with a reputation akin to a person who was totally out of control.

And I have no doubt that it was circulated to many others as some sort of punch line. Not my best moment, for sure.

I was devastated knowing that perhaps an entire office –- perhaps nationally -– had read my angry letter and that my name and reputation were sullied...by ME! I still cringe when I think about it.

I spent too much time beating myself up for allowing my reaction to the situation get so heated and for eventually allowing my reputation to suffer as a result.

But a lot of the initial energy went into blaming Tony and his company. The resentment and anger over the situation was clouding my view of the issue, my culpability in it, and ultimately my relationships with others in business.

I had gotten to a low I never wanted to get to. I knew I had to let the past go in order to move on, and so I began to look in the places I hadn't looked before to figure out how to get past this horrible situation.

The first place I looked was the mirror.

Here's how I did it:

1. I took responsibility. It was my choice to leave my other work. I chose to take a risk. I chose to resent the lack of adoration from a corporation that never saw me as anything other than a number. I chose to write that letter. And I chose to send it to someone I thought I could trust. By accepting responsibility for what I did, I learned that the more you need to feel vindicated or right about a situation that has turned out badly for you, the less you will learn from it.

2. I wrote an apology. As I had no intention of working with the company again (nor them with me), my only agenda was to clean up a past mistake and do the right thing -- apologize to Tony, a man who never deserved my acerbic words in the first place, a man who was acting in good faith and speaking for the company, not as the company. So I wrote him a quick email apologizing fully for my angry tone and hurtful words (even though I never intended to send it the original letter to him) and let him know that I understood he was not the cause of my fate, and simply didn't deserve it.

3. I remembered I was human. I realized that in my never-ending quest to be the best that I can be, that if I were to always be my best, then there would be no quest in the first place. That's the point of living a powerful life; it's not about being perfect all the time, it's about allowing the moments in your life - even the bad ones - to be perfect. My favorite expression for this is "Flying the plane while you're building it." Life dips and peaks and slows and speeds up, but it's always what we make of those moments that defines us. None of us came with instructions, but we can learn so much more from failures than from successes.

I always end my notes to clients with the phrase "Be your best!" because that is the goal I have for myself.

But in those moments, past and future, when I have not been (nor will be) my best, I at least know that I'm always going to try.

Intention is 99% of the battle, and if my intentions are good, then all is forgiven.

To be able to forgive others, you have to be able to forgive yourself first.

P.S. While I no longer correspond with that business manager, I heard back from Tony. He graciously accepted my apology and even went so far as to empathize with my situation at the time, letting me know he understood why I was so upset. He had forgiven me before I had forgiven myself.

wicked

Oh, this is so true. When you feel that calmness in your gut, it seems the only thing to do is ask for forgiveness. And even better, let go of the outcome, expect nothing. I am working on it.
Beth