Oops!

So, I was flipping through this little book I have on self-esteem at the office while waiting for my next appointment. I ran over these thoughts regarding mistakes.

"What are mistakes anyway? In truth, they are simply labels that we apply to our actions in retrospect. Mistakes do not occur at the moment of decision or action, because at that moment we are doing what we think serves us best. Later, we call something a mistake when we have experienced the consequences of it, and can see that we could have or should have acted or chosen differently. Certainly, some of these "mistakes" are legitimate goofs, like wrong turns and broken dishes. More often than not, though, our "mistakes" are simply the result of our limited awareness at the time....Rarely do we acknowledge that we are all just doing our best."

I love that. I've made a few "mistakes" lately at work and really struggled with the imperfection on my part. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was trying really hard, doing my very best, with the information that I had and the knowledge that I possessed. I had no malintent. (Is malintent a word? I hope so because I really like it.) It is only in hindsight that I understand how I could have done things differently.

The psychiatrist who I work with believes in imperfectionists rather than perfectionists. According to his thinking, I would be an imperfectionist because I focus on the one thing I did wrong (imperfectly) rather than the hundred things I did right (perfectly).