As anyone who reads my posts on a frequent basis, I say a lot that the topics each week typically come to me during my every day life. Sometimes I have them planned out weeks ahead of time, but usually I will take something very small and do my very best to put a positive spin on it and turn it into some sort of lesson for my readers. I will get into the reason shortly. First I wanted to mention that this is a bit of a repeat topic, but one I find pretty important. In life I think a lot of us are way too hard on ourselves and as a result sell ourselves short and I wanted to put an encouraging spin on just that!

Let's rewind just a bit to earlier this week. One of my bosses brought a very small error on my part to my attention. It was fixed quickly and easily, but he just brought it to my attention to be proactive so I was aware of it moving forward. Honestly no biggie! He even said that himself that he was only bringing it up so I was aware of it looking forward. He followed that up but saying I should not beat myself up over it (he knows me pretty well huh? 😉). If you know me at all you will of course know that I did get upset about it at first. Making mistakes is always so embarrassing to me and I usually just feel really bad about it especially when they are work related. Once I calmed down a little though I realized that like he said, it was mentioned to me more to make sure it didn't happen again. The timing of that paperwork was also right when I was my most busy and stressed out there as I've mentioned prior in my posts. I realized I was being too hard on myself. I realized that the problem was able to be fixed so I should not be too hard on myself. I am human. I am going to make mistakes here and there. I need to lighten up a bit and not doubt myself!

You can be good at your job and still make mistakes. What is important is moving forward afterwards. The most important thing to remember is to not sell yourself short! There are plenty of other examples of places in life where we doubt ourselves. Take our health and fitness for example. A lot of people do not get to a gym or on a consistent workout schedule because they think they are not capable of doing so. Maybe you are similar to how I used to be at the gym and strictly stuck with the cardio machines for years because you did not think you would be able to handle weight training in any way shape or form. If I could go from that to being able to leg press more than my body weight I am pretty sure you can too! You are going to make mistakes. I have had people at the gym come over and help me correct my form or help me with a machine before, but do you know what? I have also more recently had people stop me at the gym to praise all the hard work they have seen me putting in. If I was going to let doubt get in the way I would not be where I am today!

I have mentioned this before but one of my very favorite Harry Potter quotes is "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." All these years later and I still love this quote. If you sit around dreaming but never let yourself act on those dreams are you living at all? I have always dreamed of being published and after hard work I was able to achieve that with my poetry. I did not get there by not living. I got there by working toward it and pushing forward. I was able to reach a small piece of my dream because I have been living life. What is your biggest dream in life? Maybe you long for a spouse and a family. Maybe you want to be a singer, writer, painter, etc. Maybe you want to travel the world. You will never get there if all you do is sit at home and think about all the reasons you never will be able to. Dwelling on the dreams and how out of reach they are will only keep them out of arm's reach. Being proactive and believing in yourself is exactly how you will achieve them, not by doubting yourself. 

If you make a mistake just remember we all do. If you made a mistake at work like I did, I would imagine most people (as long as this mistake is not recurring) are going to be forgiving. We are all human. We are all imperfect. We are all just doing the best we can with the time we were given to live on this earth. Never take any mistake and turn it into a reason you are not moving toward your goals. Learn from those mistakes, but do not dwell on them. Never doubt yourself and sell yourself short because of them either. Work toward your dreams instead of admiring them from afar while doubting you'll ever reach them. If we all just left our dreams up in the clouds we would not have so many things we are so accustomed to in our everyday lives including the laptop I am writing this on and the Internet you are using to read it. Stop doubting yourself and start believing in yourself!