That word is “mistake.”
Seriously, nuke it from your vocabulary.
The problem with the word mistake is that it’s negatively ingrained into society.
People too often define themselves by their mistakes, the presumed result of their own character flaws.
Recall the last time you uttered the words “I made a mistake.”
You probably subconsciously judged your own character as soon as those words came out of your mouth.
All humans make mistakes.
Let’s pretend you’re on a strict diet.
Your friend’s wedding is coming up, but you don’t want to disrupt your diet.
Instead, you diligently plan around the food being served at the wedding.
You expected a grilled piece of chicken, but to your absolute horror, it’sbreaded.
Not only that, it’s doused in more oil thanPaula Deen’skitchen pantry.
You eat it anyway.
“I already broke my diet,” you rationalize, turning your eye towards the wedding cake.
“I’ve made a mistake,” you’re about to tell yourself.
But you know better than to use that word.
Missteps vs. (After all, you’ll probably be invited to more weddings.)
Let’s go back to our example.
Pretend that you had a Time Machine and could go back to the day of the wedding.
What’s something you could have done to create a better outcome?
(Aside from buying Apple stock.)
Instead, perhaps you could haveplanned to failby giving yourself a free day or created a caloric buffer.
You could have alsopracticed mindfulness after the first misstepand prevented yourself from further damage.
Practicing this exercise will help you make better decisions in future situations.
A few words of caution: don’t be fooled, because this is no easy exercise.
Allowing yourself to change is even harder.
Many people start with the external and ignore the internal.
You see this on shows like The Biggest Loser all the time.
That’s why most contestants (and dieters) end upgaining back their original weight.
As we’ve said before:fitness is a skill.
to truly evolve, you’ll need to drop the wordmistakefrom your vocabulary so that you could transform internally.
After all, you are not your mistakes.
Images byTerrance Heath,Rooners.
