Dear Lifehacker,Every time I do something embarrassing, I find myself frozen in terror.
Sometimes its warranted, but other times I feel like Im just dwelling on something that doesnt matter.
How can I stop freaking out at every little misstep?
Sincerely,Embarrassed Evermore
Dear Embarrassed,Take a deep breath and relax.
You may even be able to prevent some embarrassing moments in the future.
Our cheeks blush and our hearts skip a beat.
We start to sweat and wordsif anycome out of our mouths at a slow crawl.
You surely know what embarrassment feels like, but its important to understand why it happens.
The problem, of course, is were not perfectnot even close.
Youre not embarrassed when you fall at home alone, only when you do it around others.
Its like being tickled.
You cant completely shut off embarrassment the same way you cant make yourself embarrassed.
As hard as it is, accept embarrassment.
At some point youwilldo something embarrassing again.
Are they paying attention to you?
Did they see what you did or hear what you said?
If not, theres no need to point out what you did.
I said: Oh, I dont believe it!
Look, Im blushing!
…I had unmasked the blushing myself, it had nowhere to run and stopped immediately.
Accept that youre embarrassed and tell the people who witnessed it that you are.
Softening that initial shock keeps you from freezing up and wanting to storm out of the room.
When youve offended someone or caused problems for others with your mistake,its important to apologize.
Dont pawn it off on other people.
Explain why it happened as gracefully as you could.
People find comfort in the why of things.
Dont make it a bigger deal than it is.
Your reaction can make it more embarrassing than it already is.
You remind me of somebody else I know and it just slipped out.
I feel so embarrassed, so I hope we can hey carry on.
This can make the situation more embarrassing for you and the other person.
In fact, you will feel worse.
If you made a harmful mistake, apologize.
But if you didnt really do anything wrong, dont act like you did.
You want to move forward, and mentally place your embarrassing moment in the past.
It happened, you acknowledged it, and now its over.
Accept what happened, make a run at fix things if necessary, and move on.
This doesnt mean that the situation is out your control, though.
When you choose to laugh at yourself with people, you arent being laughed at.
It might seem like advice youd get in grade school, but it really is effective.
Youre only the victim of an embarrassing situation if you let yourself be.
Steer into the drift and own it.
Of course, laughing at yourself can only go so far sometimes.
Saying things like: Thats not the first time Ive done that.
Or what else am I going to mess up today?
Can knock the wind out of their sales and reaffirm that youre comfortable with who you are.
Lastly, if it gets to be too much, dont hesitate to excuse yourself from the situation.
Everyone makes mistakes, but that doesnt give others the right to make you feel terrible about yourself.
Youd never make such an embarrassing mistake and I hope I wont ever make it again, either.
The benefit: Youre offering two universally appreciated qualities - praise and warmth.
But telling someone you couldnt imagine them being as clumsy as you are might.
The beat ends in the situation and now it can go in any direction.
Getting turned down when you ask someone out becomes a fear of rejection.
Saying the wrong word in a conversation becomes a fear of socializing.
Having an unplanned bathroom emergency becomes a feeling of shame, as if youve done something wrong.
To keep things from getting rooted in your thoughts, you have to change your perspective on what happened.
As the video above from theWellCastYouTube channel explains, you have to change the channel in your head.
Get your mind focused on something and distract yourself.
When you look back at your embarrassing moments, you probably focus on how you felt.
Youll be able to remind yourself that youve handled things before and keep fear from moving in.
Humility is a virtue that keeps you level-headed and humble.
It becomes your ultimate shield.
Psychologist Karl Albrecht at Psychology Todayexplains humility best:
Humility
is
about
emotional neutrality
.
Everyone is your peer from the most important person to the least.
Youre just as valuable as every other human being on the planet, no more and no less.
Its about behaving and reacting from purposes, not emotions.
You learn to simply disconnect or de-program the competitive reflex in situations where its not productive.
Peopledont think about younearly as much as you think they do.
They have their own embarrassing moments to worry about, their own lives to focus on.
Have some humility and youll know that nothing silly you do matters all that much.
What matters is how you handle things.
Will you take things in stride, with humility?
Or will you blow things up way bigger than they need to be?
Let it go, youre human.
Life keeps moving forward, so do yourself a favor and venture to move with it.
