You Made a Mistake. You're Not a Mistake.
For anyone who’s ever felt like a fraud over a tiny error.
I think it’s fair to describe the first part of my career as a series of self-flagellating spirals triggered by the stupidest errors.
At the time, I was regularly preparing and presenting data to others.
Inevitably, a tiny mistake would sneak in.
A failed Excel formula.
A typo in a title.
A graph that looked fine on my screen but came out distorted on paper.
Little things.
But those little things used to send me into vicious cycles of shame.
They were fueled by my self-perception: inexperienced, a young woman in a male-dominated industry, an imposter engineer… and more.
These moments were awful. I would obsess for days.
Here’s a sample of the inner monologue that would follow:
“How can you be so dumb?”
“Nobody else makes these kinds of mistakes.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Everyone will finally see you for what you are: a fraud.”
Yeah. It was bad.
Years later, a colleague called me to say how awful he felt about a mistake he’d made. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He’d apologized repeatedly to the client.
He hadn’t slept well and was doing everything he could to fix it.
He was planning to confess it to his manager and his manager’s manager.
It wasn’t anything serious or irreversible. Yes, it was clearly a mistake, but nothing that warranted such intense self-blame.
I recognized it immediately: he was caught in one of those spirals that used to feel all too familiar to me.
So I decided to write this post and share with you what I shared with him.
Guilt vs. Shame
If you’re prone to endless self-critical spirals, it helps to pause and ask:
Is this guilt, or is it shame?
As Brené Brown puts it brilliantly in her TED Talk:
“Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is ‘I am bad.’ Guilt is ‘I did something bad.’”
Guilt: “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Shame: “I’m sorry. I am a mistake.”
Guilt can be constructive.
I did something wrong. How can I fix it?
I can sincerely apologize, put in more hours to correct the file, replace whatever I’ve broken, send flowers or chocolates (or both).
It feels uncomfortable, but there’s a path forward.
What can I learn from it?
Shame, on the other hand, is paralyzing.
It feeds on silence and the belief that we’re inferior to others.
It tells us we’re undeserving. Unworthy. Alone.
And when left unchecked, shame can lead to serious consequences from depression to addiction and even suicide.
The Antidote to Shame Spirals
Fortunately, there is a way out of these terrible, mistake-induced spirals.
For me, the answer lies in three key insights:
1. You’re Not the Exception. Everyone Makes Mistakes.
Shame thrives on the belief that we are terribly flawed, while others are not.
And that’s a lie.
There’s an Arabic proverb I love:
“المصيبة إذا عمت هانت”
“A calamity, when widespread, is diminished.”
It’s similar in spirit to the English saying: “A burden shared is a burden eased.”
There’s comfort in remembering: everyone is imperfect. You’re not alone in your mistake.
2. Speak to Yourself with Kindness
The antidote to shame and excessive guilt is kindness.
Especially kindness toward ourselves, which doesn’t come naturally to many of us.
One helpful question I learned to ask is:
“If someone I loved made this mistake, what would I say to them?”
Then say that to yourself.
After discovering Brené’s work, I started practicing this. Slowly, I began to shift my inner dialogue:
From: “I’m stupid.”
To: “I made a stupid mistake. I’m human. Everyone makes mistakes.
Next time, I’ll triple-check the document before sending it.”
I can’t tell you the power this simple practice has had on my mental well-being.
3. Zoom Out and Rebalance the Picture
When we mess up, our brains zoom in on the error. But that’s only one small part of the global picture of who we are.
So take a moment to zoom out and remind yourself of your strengths.
Yes, I sent my boss an incorrect file. I sometimes struggle with processing big loads of data and a simple copy paste can get the best of me. But I’m also a good communicator, with excellent relational skills.
This makes my performance outstanding at other parts of the job.
See how that broadens the image?
It brings back context, balance, and truth.
Over to You
The next time you find yourself spiraling, I hope you remember:
Shame is universal. Everyone feels it sometimes.
It’s like catching the occasional cold. It happens to the best of us.
You’re not alone with it.
And self-compassion is both your chicken soup and your medicine.
Time to turn up the inner kindness.
Give yourself grace.
Refuse to think in terms of “I am <negative adjective>”.
Learn the lesson. And move on.
Because to never fail… is to never learn.
💬 I'd love to hear:
Have you ever fallen into a shame spiral over something small?
What helped you get out of it?
Leave a comment or hit reply, I’d love to hear from you.
A great post Ilham, thank you.
It's funny how we will process the mistakes we make so much differently when we are younger than how we will deal with them when we are much older. I often look back at how I handled things before and wonder, "Why on earth did I not do this?"
But you are right, it is a balance between shame and guilt. As we mature and realise that actually, life is all about making loads of mistakes, we cannot avoid them, our resilience then grows and we become more philosophical about them too - the balance then shifts to a more detached and objective way of processing a failure (as you described brilliantly in 'what to do') and in a way, more toward guilt, when they happen than shame.
When I was an adolescent growing up, I did some very, very stupid things and hurt a few people, which would become things that I felt deeply ashamed about. They would haunt me for years and even undermine my confidence in many ways, where I didn't trust myself even to do the right things... But it took a good friend a little while later to help me put things into perspective, to forgive myself and realise that what I did was symptomatic of the pressures I was under at the time, as an immature and inexperienced kid. They were also not that big a deal, either, and the people I hurt would have got over it.
And this for me is also a lesson, that when we fail, especially when we are young, it's always good to talk to someone older and wiser than us, whom we can trust, who can help us to process our feelings and then shift the balance, as you have put it.
It all leads back to the ‘I am not good enough unless I am perfect’ vibe. We must all know that we are human (hopefully anyway), and we also must see other humans making mistakes. So by making our own we are just being normal. It’s crazy how we let our ego take over, isn’t it. I recall once in my banking career bouncing a companies cheque. They were very affluent so there was no reason to return it and of course they were livid. It questioned their reputation in the eyes of the payee.
I was mortified. I had picked up the wrong cheque because I was talking instead of focusing. I offered to apologise to both the company and the payee and take full responsibility. I was sure I would be sacked. I was only 18!
The bank manager dealt with it all for me with a warning to take more care. He actually said ‘It’s not the end of the world.’ I still use that phrase myself years later.