We know that only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. But we still fear them. But in vain! By allowing ourselves not to be perfect, we get a chance to take a broader look at the world and discover new possibilities in it.
“I think, therefore I am,” the philosopher René Descartes proclaimed in the first half of the XNUMXth century. The phrase has become catchy, but few remember that it has an aphorism predecessor.
Even 12 centuries before Descartes, Blessed Augustine uttered a phrase similar in meaning and yet strikingly different: «If I am mistaken, I exist.» The great thinker and theologian recognized that a person has the right to make a mistake — a right that is so diligently deprived of us today by the school, the family, and public institutions. The very right that we resolutely deny ourselves.
The Nature of Fear of Mistakes
“At a recent book fair, talking to readers, I congratulated one of them on her unborn child,” says 45-year-old publisher Maxim. She shuddered, blushed and ran away, saying only: «I’m not pregnant!» The meeting was canceled, I could not talk further. At that moment, I wanted only one thing: to die immediately, this very second!
“Fall through the ground”, “die of shame”, “burn out of embarrassment” — our language is generous with biting descriptions of the emotions that we experience when we do something wrong. Indeed, many of us have experienced at least once in our lives painfully our missteps.
But why does a real storm of negative and obviously inadequate emotions arise? Where does this horror of completely harmless situations come from and why is it so strong that a mistake is unconsciously perceived by us almost as a threat to physical existence?
“Even a small oversight can cause panic, provoke a feeling of fear,” agrees psychotherapist Alexander Badkhen. “And these feelings are connected with the experiences of early childhood, the time when the child begins to realize his own dependence on other people and the need to meet their requirements.”
And in fact: he is vitally dependent on adults. A child will not survive if he is not fed or taken by the hand at the crossing of a busy street.
“In order to hold on and not disappear, in order to be accepted by those on whom survival depends, he has to adapt to the requirements of his parents, giving up his authenticity,” continues Alexander Badkhen. “It is at this point that the child begins to lose spontaneity in order to maintain a vital relationship.
He makes his first mistakes, which he experiences as his own inconsistency with the way it should be. And these discrepancies for young children really carry the threat of non-existence.
Mistakes and penalties
It is quite understandable and negative emotions that can literally overwhelm us when we make even a minor mistake. “When we make mistakes, we experience a sense of shame, our self-esteem suffers,” explains Alexander Badchen. “Sometimes, at such moments, we simply cannot bear ourselves.”
It is on the feeling of shame and punishment for mistakes that the vast majority of social mechanisms in human society are built.
“Remember how a child’s social life begins at school,” suggests family psychologist and narrative consultant Ekaterina Daichik. — Is it when children write a dictation, someone notes how many words they wrote correctly? But each mistake is underlined with a red pen.
The more mistakes, the more unpleasant words the child will hear from both teachers and parents, who will also see in what happened a reflection of their own pedagogical mistakes. It seems to me that this is one of the problems in Western culture: we focus on failures, not on successes.
It’s hard to disagree with this. How many family storms are generated by an unclosed tube of toothpaste or clothes scattered on the sofa! Is it so often enthusiastic when the cap is screwed on and the clothes are put away in the closet? The same applies to work.
Mistakes in it are fraught with at least scolding and fines. But in order to deserve the award, most often it is not enough to fulfill one’s duties, accomplishments and breakthroughs are needed. But how many are capable of them? After all, here you need to take responsibility, make difficult decisions … and again risk making a mistake.
useless flight
American journalist and writer Katherine Schultz has been researching society’s attitudes towards mistakes and our fears associated with them for many years. In her talk at the TED Unique Ideas conference, she gives a funny example.
In many cartoons there are such scenes when one character in pursuit of another (a wolf chasing a hare in «Just you wait!», a cat chasing a mouse in «Tom and Jerry») takes a step off a cliff or the edge of a roof. And for some time he continues to run — until he suddenly finds that he is running through the air. Only after that, the unlucky pursuer falls down.
Katherine Schultz is sure that we all behave in exactly the same way. “We are so accustomed to the inadmissibility of mistakes that sometimes we just don’t believe that we ourselves are capable of making mistakes,” she says. — After all, we want to be good and successful, and mistakes are the lot of losers. Therefore, we are ready to deny them to the last.
And when the mistakes become obvious to ourselves, when we realize that we were running through the air, we fall into the abyss, we find ourselves paralyzed and unable to do anything.
Perhaps even more dangerous is that we tend to identify with our shortcomings.
“If you make a mistake, then you are bad. Again wrong — again bad, that’s what society teaches us. And then it’s very easy and completely give up on yourself: since I’m so bad, then what difference does it make what and how to do, ”warns Ekaterina Daichik.
The desire to avoid mistakes is paralyzing not only in a situation where the mistake has already been made. It can stop us from progressing.
“Unconsciously, we choose those behavioral strategies that better meet the need for survival and internal stability, even at the cost of losing other opportunities, at the cost of giving up a fuller manifestation of our personality,” explains Alexander Badkhen. “But the stability bought at such a price in itself gives rise to internal contradictions.
A sense of shame and self-doubt become excellent helpers in the formation of an internal critic (whose main task will be to protect against mistakes). In the future, this inner critic, this controlling part of the personality, will become a barrier that will try to prevent the manifestation of spontaneity.
Act and create
Mistakes teach us to look at the world more broadly, and by denying them, we close the doors to imagination and creativity. “Man is the only creature capable of realizing his mistakes,” says Katherine Schultz. “That’s why they are an advantage, not a disadvantage!”
So that our children can fully use this advantage, Ekaterina Daichik suggests shifting the emphasis.
“Parents should pay more attention not to mistakes, but to what the child does,” she is sure. “You did this, this, and this — just great! And if he could also cope with this, it would be generally amazing! So we will inspire the child, and not clip his wings.
So what about adults? Can we stop being afraid of mistakes? Alexander Badchen thinks we can. “We are not able to change our childhood, but we still have the opportunity to change ourselves, our attitude to past experience, restore our “I”, restore the lost inner integrity,” he says.
Everyone has their own way to get there. Thus, the idea of post-traumatic growth is gaining popularity in psychotherapy. Its essence can be explained something like this: when we make a mistake or a disaster happens to us, an opportunity for development opens up before us.
Of course, ideally it would be better not to make mistakes and avoid troubles. But since they are inevitable, then in addition to troubles, something useful can be extracted from them. Perhaps to learn something about themselves or about how to act in the future, again faced with a similar situation.
Ekaterina Daichik adds: “Try to think about what really seems to you the most terrible thing in life. And compare with the consequences of a possible or already made mistake.
Of course, this is not a universal recipe. But it helps to understand that a slip of the tongue in a public speech or a delay in filing a quarterly report is not a disaster. And that the real mistake is precisely to stop in development, depriving yourself of the opportunity to act and create out of fear of making a mistake.