You Are Not Your Mistakes

Hi there,

I was standing in a checkout line at Target on Saturday afternoon. Tired, cart full, doing that thing where you stare at nothing and just wait for the line to move.

And then I heard her.

A mother, maybe three feet away, gripping her son's arm, a little boy, six or seven maybe, who had just knocked over one of those display towers near the register. Chapsticks and batteries fell all over the floor. Clearly an accident because this kind of thing happens when you're small and the world is full of things at elbow height.

He was already bending down to pick everything up when she yanked him upright and said, loud enough for everyone to hear:

"This is exactly why I can't take you anywhere. You're so careless. You ruin everything."

I felt it anger watching the interaction.

I watched his shoulders drop and go quiet. He picked up every single item off that floor without saying a word while she stood over him.

I wanted to say something.

I didn't. But I wanted to.

Standing there watching that little boy, it hit me — we all do this to ourselves. Maybe not out loud and maybe not in the middle of Target. But in our own heads, after a mistake, after a bad call, after a moment we're not proud of, we can sound exactly like that mother.

You always do this. You should know better. What is wrong with you.

Sound familiar?

People are not their behavior

Here's the thing, the display did get knocked over. That was real and needed to be addressed. But mom didn't address the boy’s behavior. Instead, she went after who he was.

And those are two completely different things with two completely different outcomes.

"That was careless" tells the child that his behavior was wrong. It's specific. It points toward what needs to change. It leaves the door wide open for growth and doing better next time.

"You are careless" tells the child who he is. And once something becomes who you are, it's not something you can easily fix. It becomes something that you carry and it follows you out of that Target and into every room you walk into, maybe for years to come.

One targets the behavior. The other targets the person.

The behavior can be corrected, but when behavior becomes synonymous with the person, it tears away at them.

The Voice In Your Own Head

Think about the last time you made a mistake: dropped the ball at work, said the wrong thing to someone you love, or made a call that didn't pan out.

What did the voice in your head say?

Was it "that was a mistake — here's what to do differently?"

Or was it "I always do this. I can't get anything right. This is exactly who I am?"

Because if it was the second one, you've been doing to yourself exactly what that mother did to her son. You took something that happened and turned it into something you are. You stopped addressing the behavior and started going after the person.

This is one of the most important things I've come to understand: what you did and who you are are not the same thing. Not even close.

The behavior is something that happened. The person is something far more complex, far more capable, and far more redeemable than any single moment of failure.

When you collapse the two and let what you did become who you are, you're not holding yourself accountable. You're just tearing yourself down and making yourself smaller.

Try this instead

Next time, something goes wrong, address the behavior. But leave the person out of it.

Because that person — underneath the mistake, underneath the bad day, underneath the pattern you're trying to break — they are not what they did.

And the moment you start treating yourself that way by correcting the behavior without destroying the person, things starts to shift.

And this won’t just affect how you treat yourself, but how you treat everyone around you. The child who messes up. The friend who lets you down. The colleague who drops the ball.

Because the most generous thing you can offer another person is the same grace you're learning to offer yourself: the understanding that what they did and who they are are two completely different things.

That little boy in Target didn't need to be told who he was.

He just needed someone to mold his behavior and help him pick up the Chapsticks.

Your focus shapes your reality.

Shift it.

Shakila