 to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Welcome back to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. We're gonna continue talking about self-esteem. In the last section, we talked a fair amount about shoulds and mistakes and unhelpful thoughts that keep us kind of beating ourselves up when we make mistakes, but we're gonna really look at how to handle mistakes now and where those shoulds come from so you can prevent creating any more in your life because even though we know that shoulds are bad, a lot of times we continue to use that word. I would encourage you to take that word out of your vocabulary right now. Do or do not, there is no try. If you need to do something in order to get closer to achieving your goals of happiness, all right, that's one thing, but should kind of keeps you in a limbo. So let's talk about mistakes. We all make mistakes. And a lot of times or sometimes we're going to make some big ones. I don't think I know anybody who hasn't made a couple of big mistakes in their life. What do you do about it? You can't undo the past. You can reframe the mistakes. You can look at them as learning opportunities because a mistake is a mistake, but you don't wanna make it again. I mean, you didn't wanna make it the first time but you certainly don't wanna make it again. So reframe mistakes and look at it as a learning opportunity. And encourage yourself to become aware. I mean, talk to other people if you need to, which, imagine that social support. Ask other people how they handle their mistakes because everybody makes mistakes. Everybody poops and everybody makes mistakes. So it's important to remember that you're not the only one. Yeah, this could be a doozy and it may take a little while to get over. I don't know what the mistake was, but you will be able to get past it and it will encourage you to accept the fact that what's done is done and work on looking at the next moment as an opportunity to improve and become better than you were five minutes ago. You wanna become aware of when mistakes are big mistakes and when mistakes are little mistakes that you're blowing up into huge big deals because a lot of times if you've got low self-esteem, you're probably very self-conscious. Every time you make a mistake, you think everybody saw and you think everybody's watching. So become more aware of not only the magnitude of your mistakes, so let the little ones go. We all make little mistakes here and there. Learn from them, don't get me wrong, but learn from them and move on. The bigger mistakes you're gonna have to deal with for a little bit longer, but become aware of in the big scheme of things, how frequently do you make mistakes? And in the big scheme of things, how frequently do other people make mistakes? Because again, everybody makes mistakes, which takes us to raising your mistake consciousness and that's really all about becoming more aware of the fact that nobody's perfect, you're not perfect and what can this mistake, whatever it was, how can this help you grow into a more resilient person now? Sometimes whether we make a mistake or not, we're going to experience criticism and it happens, sometimes it's constructive, sometimes it's not, but you gotta be able to deal with it. We've been talking up until now about your own internal critic, but sometimes criticism comes from the outside. So what do you do with that if somebody criticizes you or gives you, quote, constructive feedback? Well, let's look at the myth of reality. Everybody's reality is 90% perception and 10% fact. So what they may see as a big mistake based on their perception, based on what they know, based on their perspective, it may look like a big mistake to them, but from your perspective, it may not be. So hearing what they have to say, taking it in, using what is helpful and leave the rest because everybody's reality is a little bit different. Now, if you're talking about your supervisor, you may have to pay a little more attention to his or her reality, but being aware of what you did and why you did it and whether you think it was a mistake. Now, you may have to integrate some changes, but that's okay. When you get criticism, whether it's from your internal critic or from outside, the first thing to do is to take a breath and use your distress tolerance skills and say, okay, let me hear what's being said, and then I can look at it and evaluate it for its usefulness and its validity based on my perspective. Once you've done that, then you can decide what the best course of action is. When you were growing up as a youth, as a child, there were probably times that you did things that your parents didn't like and they provided constructive feedback and you took it in and you either did whatever they wanted or you thought to yourself, you know what? No, that's not who or what I want to be and you did your own thing anyway. That was a healthy way of responding to criticism. Now, if you didn't and you just did whatever other people always told you to do, then I would encourage you to look at why. A lot of times that's because you have low self-esteem and you were afraid of rejection because you needed somebody else to tell you you were okay. In order to respond healthfully to criticism, you've got to be able to look at what you did and who you are, make a judgment and go, you know, I'm okay for who I am and what I am. Not everybody has to like me and you have to be able to be okay saying that. Another thing that is important in self-esteem, you know, like I said, a lot of times people with low self-esteem will do whatever other people tell them to do to avoid rejection. They will also oftentimes ignore their own needs and wants not ask for what they need for fear of being rejected or imposing and not say no when other people impose on them because they don't want to make anybody mad. They need to keep everybody around to validate that they're okay. An important part of developing self-esteem is to be able to recognize that your needs and wants are legitimate. And, you know, we don't always get all of our wants. That's kids go and sit on Santa's lap every Christmas and they ask for the moon and they probably get a couple of things. Not everybody and few people get everything they want but let's look at needs. Needs are those things that you, guess what, need in order to be happy, healthy and secure. And we call these kind of legitimate needs. These are things that in order to achieve your goals of happiness you need in your life. You need rest, you need relaxation, you need stable finances, you need social support, you need, you know, the list goes on. These are legitimate needs and on a day-to-day basis these needs may vary a little bit. Maybe you've been sick but you've got a move so you need some help moving because you know you don't have the energy to do it all on your own. That's a legitimate need. Now, wants are a little bit different because they're kind of like icing on the cake. Wants are things, you know, yes it would be ideal if you had eight of your friends come move for you when you're not feeling well but really you only need one or two people to help you get your apartment cleaned out and move to your new house. You wanna look at the differences between needs and wants. Do you need every single person to like you or do you want every single person to like you? And notice when I say every single person that's an example of that extreme thinking again. Guess what? Every single person ain't gonna like you. So it's important to look at who is it that you need, what relationships are really important to you in your life. And when you start identifying these things it's going to be important to start communicating them. And people aren't used to you communicating your needs and wants so they're gonna be a little taken aback at first probably. So it's important to create a win-win when you start telling people what you need and asking for what you need and setting boundaries and saying, you know what? I can't do that right now. And one of the best ways to do this is create a win-win. So if you tell somebody no but you can propose an alternative, you know I can't help you move this weekend but next weekend I can help you clean up your old place you know you're providing an alternative one that helps you maintain your boundaries and get your needs met but it also you know gives some to the other person. Another way of creating a win-win is if somebody you're in a relationship with does something that you don't like you can ask them you know not to do it but put out the carrot you know don't assume that they can connect the dots put out the carrot that it would help me feel a lot less stressed and be less irritable if you called when you were gonna be late or if you you know whatever the issue is. Why is this in self-esteem? Because people with a good self-esteem don't feel like doormats and when you feel like a doormat then you tend to start to get angry and resentful at other people and then that pushes them away and you wonder well why don't people like me and then you get even more angry and resentful then you start questioning yourself thinking well maybe I'm unlovable. So it's really important to feel okay about yourself and project that to other people. Yeah you know there may be somebody who likes 90% of you and there's just one part about you they just don't like that's okay do they have to like you everything about you all the time do they have to agree with every opinion all the time? No again extreme words. What is it that you need in your relationship? So I would encourage you to make a list of things that you need in order to feel happy, healthy and secure and move towards those things that are important to you. And then you can have another list of wants. You know that's kind of like your bucket list there. Needs are things that you've got to get done though. Once you figure out what those needs are and where you want to go and what your happiness goal looks like then it's important to start setting goals in order for me to feel good about myself. You know maybe there's this thing out there you know for me I want to publish another book. So that's one of the goals that I have out there on the horizon that's important to me. All right well that's a good goal. Is that helping me move towards the things that are important to me in life? And yes so it's worth my effort. So now that I know what that ultimate goal is then I start to say all right how can I make my goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time limited? Well instead of just saying A book then I figure out what the book's gonna be on about how long it's gonna be and I set a realistic timeframe for completing it. Then I make a commitment to do it and the commitment can be with myself but it's often helpful when you make commitments to share it with somebody else who can be a good cheerleader for you. And then create blocks to achieving that goal. So I'm not gonna sit down one day and write an entire book. That's just not even realistic. So create certain blocks. The first day I write the sketch outline. The next week I write chapter one. The next week I write chapter two. So then I can see that I am making adequate forward progress. Maybe one of your goals is to get in better shape. Well that's great. So what is the first thing that you need to do in order to get in better shape? And that could be by tennis shoes. The second thing would be start going to the gym and walking on a treadmill for a mile. And then the next week maybe it's a mile and a quarter. So you're seeing small incremental improvements. If you do things slowly and methodically they're going to last. If you do things like full bore and all of a sudden the chances of them being permanent changes are slim. Another goal some people have is the ability to manage their emotions. So again, figure out what that looks like for you and what you need to do to manage your emotions. One of them could be starting to learn to practice mindfulness every day. And then starting to learn a new distress tolerance skill once a week. And noticing how your mood improves as you move towards that ultimate goal. When you start achieving your goals you're going to start being able to look yourself in the mirror and go at a girl or at a guy, you did it. And you're going to have more confidence in yourself. You're going to feel better about yourself. And you're going to be able to silence that internal critic that says that you always fail or you are never going to measure up to whatever. Because you're going to be able to go, I am measuring up to who I feel I want to be. If you have children, then you can start building self-esteem in them now. If you don't, you can reparent yourself. All of us have a little kid inside whether you want to believe it or not. I let mine come out periodically and that's okay. Parents have a lot of power to provide unconditional positive regard and help children see that they are lovable for who they are, not necessarily for what they do. I mean, their achievements are great. But even if they are not good at math or maybe they're not good at school in general, that doesn't mean that they're not lovable. By the same token, parents are mirrors. So we can do, as parents, we can do a ton of stuff to try to build self-esteem in our children. But if we model the opposite, if we model that it's important to have everybody else like us, if we model that appearances are more important than how you feel, children take that in. So it's important to remember, what are you projecting? What are your children observing from you? Because they learn a whole lot more by what you do than what you say. The language of self-esteem means paying attention when you're talking to yourself or when you're talking to your child to not use those extreme words. And also to use words that are affirming of the person and maybe constructively critical of the behaviors. People can be very good people and make a mistake. A child can be a good child, but cheat on a test. So encourage yourself to differentiate between your goodness as a human being and your skills or your mistakes. Self-esteem begins in childhood. It's imperative to help people separate strengths and weaknesses, those things that you can and cannot do from who you are, even if you're not a great handyman, even if you're not a world-class singer or a world-class athlete, does that mean you are not a good person? No, who you are and your goodness is a person, your worth is a person, it's completely separate from what you can do. Self-loathing and rejection contributes to unhappiness. So if you're constantly focusing on your skills and your weaknesses, instead of focusing on who you are as a person, as a loving, caring, kind, compassionate, creative, there's lots of C's there, but think about who you are as a person, not just what you can do. And focus on that instead of, and your strengths, instead of focusing on all of the ways you've fallen short. Part of self-esteem development includes values identification. So figuring out what is important to you and who you are as a person, what, you know, three or four things, characteristics do you wanna be remembered by, understanding the difference between your wants and needs, because you need to get your needs met, which is why there are needs, but there are those wants out there and we all want things. So how can you start working towards getting some of those met too? And addressing cognitive distortions, so you're not being the bully in your own head and contributing to a lower self-esteem and rejecting yourself on a daily basis. The book self-esteem by McKay and Fanning provides a wealth of activities and tools that are simple to implement for self-help as well as group activities. So if you wanna go to newharbinger.com, you can use the promo code 1168snipes at checkout and receive a 25% discount. This book will walk you through everything we talked about in these series of podcasts, as well as a whole bunch more activities. This is one of the best self-esteem workbooks that I've found in my years of looking for materials for self-esteem groups and activities. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app, join our Facebook group at docsknipes.com slash Facebook or join our community and access additional resources at docsknipes.com. Thanks for tuning into Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. 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