What you need when you’re failing

It definitely takes a lot of energy to sustain everything you do, but you get it back from the results you get, even amplified.

But it also happens that the energy balance is negative, and, then, maybe you start to hear a critical voice, which creeps in, continuing to tell you “you’re not good enough,” “you’re not doing enough,” and feeding the guilt for not giving it your all.

But life, at least for me, does not have to be a continuous performance.

Of course, putting in consistent effort and dedication is essential, but there’s come a time when, despite everything you put in (and by the way, paradoxically, being aware of all these mechanisms further fuels your guilt) you don’t get what you want.

What can you do then?

The word is acceptance, cultivating ‘self-compassion instead of continuing to wallow in doubt.

In fact, having compassion for yourself leads to accepting that you are not perfect, seeing your failure sometimes as helpful, and being aware that it is from mistakes that you learn most (provided you have full awareness of what you did wrong).

You can work on three points to develop compassion

• Being kind to yourself
• Being aware that you are not alone, that we all fight our own battles and sometimes lose them
• Focusing on the here and now, observing even something negative, without denying it, instead seeing it as helpful, and then letting it go

Then there are practices that you can go alongside.

Meditating is one of them and allows you to refocus on yourself.

Writing is another very useful action, allowing you to turn to yourself with compassion and, at the same time, to “unload” what has happened to you. When rereading it, it often appears less severe than when it is still in your mind.

So if you happen (and it happens to me often) to have a bad day, accept it, don’t feel guilty, catch your breath, and tomorrow, as they say, is another day.