How to reduce self-criticism after making a mistake

How often do you beat yourself up over making the wrong decision or doing something that didn’t work out the way you’d hoped?

Maybe it's a conversation that didn't go as planned. A choice at work that backfired. A relationship decision you regret.

This self-critical process often starts with questions like, “Did I do the right thing?” “Why did I do that?”, or similar.

While it’s reasonable to ask ourselves these things, it’s important that we do it in the right way if we want them to lead to something more productive than self-criticism. And most people who tend to beat themselves up more than they should often fail to do that for one simple reason:

The questions they ask themselves aren’t specific enough.

Why "Did I do the right thing?" leads to self-criticism

When you ask yourself whether you did the right thing, your mind immediately starts comparing the outcome you got with what the ideal outcome would’ve been. And if those aren’t the same, the answer to the question is clearly “no”.

The problem with this is that it doesn’t take into account this one simple truth: 

Your answer is based on what you know now—after the fact, with all the information that's become clear since your action was taken. And judging the quality of a decision based on information you didn’t have when you made it is like being upset with yourself for not liking a new type of food that you’d never tried before.

This kind of thinking creates self-doubt. It chips away at your confidence and can even damage your self-esteem.

Because you're not actually evaluating whether you made a good decision—you're punishing yourself for not being psychic.

Instead, backdate your question.

A much better question to ask yourself is: 

"Did I do the right thing based on the information I had at the time?"

This little addition changes everything. Suddenly, you're evaluating your choice or action fairly—based on what you actually knew when you made it.

And the answer to this question will far more often be “yes”.

You’ll realize that, given what you knew and understood at that moment, you made the best choice you could. Maybe it didn't work out the way you hoped. Maybe you'd do it differently now. But at the time? You did your best.

Now, instead of beating yourself up for making the best decision you could at the time, you can learn from the experience by asking yourself questions like,

“What did I learn from this experience?”
“How will this knowledge help me make better decisions in the future?”

And when you do that, not only will the self-criticism tend to fade away, but you’ll also tend to boost your confidence by feeling better prepared for similar future situations.

What to do when the answer is still no

All that said, sometimes we could and should have made a better decision based on the information we had at the time. And when that’s the case, it’s a good idea to ask ourselves a different question:

“Why did I make the bad decision?”

Maybe you were feeling upset, maybe you didn’t pause to think things through, maybe you wanted to do the wrong thing, but now regret it. Whatever the answer is, consider whether this is critique-worthy or understandable.

If it was an understandable mistake to make—because, for example, you were sleep-deprived and distracted and shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place—be forgiving of yourself and simply commit to trying to avoid that understandable situation in the future.

If, however, you find that your reason for making the bad choice was neither understandable nor unavoidable—you’ve found an opportunity for personal growth.

It’s ok to be a little self-critical in these cases, but instead of using that as fuel to feel bad about yourself, use it as a motivator to grow by taking appropriate action.

Apologize if an apology is in order. Work on the reason you chose to do the wrong thing. Change the routines, habits, or faulty beliefs that got you in trouble. Simply put, take responsibility for your decision and commit to doing better in the future.

Summing up.

Hindsight is 20/20. It's incredibly easy to look back at a decision and think "I should've known better"—even when there was no way for you to know what you didn't know at the time.

But beating yourself up for that doesn't help you. It just keeps you stuck.

Changing “Did I do the right thing?” to “Did I do the right thing based on the information/resources/abilities I had at the time?” makes all the difference.

Instead of spiraling into self-doubt every time something doesn't go as planned, you'll start seeing these moments as opportunities to learn.

And that's what confidence is really about—not always getting the perfect result, but trusting yourself to learn from what happens and keep moving forward.