Most setbacks and criticism aren't personal failures but results of external factors beyond your control. The speaker argues that taking things personally stems from trying to meet expectations, and suggests pausing to assess whether you're actually at fault before accepting blame.
I tend to take a lot of stuff personally, and I always have. Whenever I wasn't good enough or lived up to my own or others' expectations, I took it very personal and took it inside of me. Maybe you do too. I think it's natural for us to wanting to be our best around the people that care and rely on us professionally or the people in our personal lives. But sometimes we just have to kind of let go and realize that what's happening, it's not about us. It is not our personal failure when something doesn't go the way that we want it to. 99.9% of the time, it has to do with something that's beyond us, some externality that we can't control, that we can't manage. And that's fine. So if you ever feel like, oh, this is my fault, think about it carefully and then realize that it It probably isn't.
