Mel Robbins explains how to break the cycle of feeling like a failure by shifting your daily question from "did I succeed?" to "did I grow?" Instead of focusing on outcomes, ask yourself each night: What did I learn today? and Did I try my best?
We're all so exhausted for a lot of reasons right now, but what's particularly exhausting is feeling like a failure. Hmm. It leads to what psychologists call learned helplessness. If you keep trying, keep trying, keep trying, don't feel like you get anywhere, eventually you just learn that you're helpless and you give up. What we're talking about here is, yes, something that takes a little bit of effort, but it's less exhausting. Because what you're at the end of the day evaluating is, have I grown? Not have I succeeded? Hmm. It's what have I learned today? Not what did I get right or wrong? You know, there's a million things I'm sure I've done wrong as a parent. But one of the things that I, I'm happy that my husband and I implemented early on with our kids, is when they would bring home any sort of grade or test or paper from school, we, we would try really hard not to react to the grade. All we would say is, do you understand what you got wrong? Did you try your best? And I think those are actually great questions for us all to ask ourselves at the end of a day. Hmm. Not, did I get it right or wrong? It's, what did I learn and did I try my best? So 2 questions to ask yourself at the end of every day: What did I learn? And did I try my best? Yeah.
Oprah Winfrey: How to Find Your Unique Purpose, Authentic Power, and Calling in Life
