It’s time to stop beating ourselves up! Stop berating yourself over and over again for making a little (or big) mistake. How many little mistakes do we make in a day? Too many to count! It seems absolutely pointless to focus on the negative instead of the positive in our lives.

Instead of focusing on our mistakes, let’s remember our good decisions, the times we chose to choose the right. Let’s reward ourselves for the good we do in the world!

I often find myself thinking, “I should have done that” or “What a lame move.” I have a co-worker who tries to cheer me up when I focus on my mistakes. She likes to say, “Hey, remember that really great idea you had!” or, my personal favorite, “It is what it is.” Somehow, when she makes these little comments, they make me laugh and I suddenly feel a little better. I’m always grateful for her and her help in reminding me that everyone makes mistakes.

But what my co-worker doesn’t realize is that she taught me a wonderful principle the first time she started helping me to see the positive. She taught me to finish each day and be done with it. She showed me how to celebrate the good. She helped me see that I was making good decisions and going in the right direction in life. What an important lesson for all of us to remember!

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote:

Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could;

some blunders and absurdities have crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;

you shall begin in serenely

and with too high a spirit

to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

I love this poem and the emphasis it places on remembering the good and forgetting the bad. Let’s remember the times when we made good choices instead of the times when we’ve made mistakes. Let’s move forward and look to tomorrow.

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