A MOMENT of mistake, embarrassment, and frustration is LINED by support, self-awareness and self-love.
Oh, the joy of waking up and discovering a typo in your post from the night before that you put on three different platforms and that had a lot views! My inbox was full of messages informing me about this typo. A mistake very noticeable to a lot of people but something that I missed. Anyone else experience this?
In the original post, I misspelled journal. There it is, in large bold font, JOUNRAL. Looking at it now, I feel like it is glaring at me.
Seeing this typo this morning set in motion a train filled with frustration, negative self-talk, embarrassment, and overall feelings of a loser. All this was a result of one typo. As these feelings were taking hold, I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
As I wrote, I remembered a college professor warning me about such mistakes. He praised my substantive analysis and overall writing but noted the typos in my papers. He said something to the extent that:
Typos will take away from your substantive work as people will think less of you and your work when they see them.
His words stuck with me. I review my work. I use the various tricks – read out loud, read from the end to the beginning, etc. Yet, I miss typos. And, now years later, as I am promoting the BEING in 2020 Journal, something very important to me, my post had a typo.
How many people seeing this post with the typo will think less of the Journal and less of me? Will this stop them from buying the Journal? These thoughts led to a barrage of negative self-talk.
How could I sabotage the BEING in 2020 Journal with such sloppiness? What is wrong with me? Why and how did I miss this? Loser.
Wait a second. Wait just one second; something doesn’t feel right.
Perhaps some will think less of me. Perhaps some, in realizing that others make these simple and sloppy mistakes too, will take some pressure off themselves. I don’t know how people will or will not react. So, I do not need to react to these unknown reactions. What I can do is choose how I react for myself. With this thought, almost an hour into my self-loathing, I say to myself “choose self-love”. I realize this typo is an opportunity to practice self-love. Now, how do I do this?
Am I a loser because I made a post with a typo? No. I made a mistake, yes. It happens. Peeling off the label of loser, I see things from a better perspective.
The typo in the post does not affect the quality of the BEING in 2020 Journal itself. It is good. Knowing my propensity for typos, I had other people review the BEING in 2020Journal before its publication. We caught and corrected the typos before publication. It is a good journal. I am proud of it. It is okay to be proud of this Journal.
The typo showed me that I am still learning new skills such as creating posts in Canva and other social media tools. In the process, I am learning more about myself. This is a good thing because I enjoy learning.
The typo had friends message me. They did not contact me to ridicule or criticize me. They contacted me to let me know about the typo because they care about me and they want my projects to succeed. I am filled with gratitude for such caring friends.
The typo gave me an opportunity to practice self-love. It showed me how much pressure I put on myself over simple things and that I can change my thoughts or “turn the valve” and release the pressure. When I do, gratitude and joy fill the space.
The typo in the post does not affect my self-worth. I am good enough just as I am, mistakes and all. I continue to learn from my mistakes, which is a pretty good in and of itself.
From this typo, I discover how a moment of mistake, embarrassment, and frustration is lined by support, self-awareness and self-love.
As for the typo in that post, I corrected the photo and uploaded the corrected photo to the respective posts — I think. Just for good measure, here it is:
Before this website, I posted articles and blogs on LinkedIn. You can check out my previous articles and blogs here.