I’m always thinking of embarrassing moments from my past and I let those moments define me. For example, there was one time in 8th grade where I mixed up the definitions of adverb and adjective. Needless to say I was embarrassed. Yes, I know what an adverb and adjective is, but a brain fart caused an embarrassing hiccup in class. I am constantly replaying mistakes in my head no matter how trivial those mistakes are. With these types of moments constantly playing and causing a perpetual state of anguish it makes me insecure in normal interactions.
I’m constantly analyzing everything I say out of fear that I will say something insensitive or foolish. How to I get better at being more comfortable in my own skin? How do I forget these types of incidents that everyone else has inevitably forgotten? I constantly think that I lack intelligence and worth, thus I feel like there is some underlying judgement from individuals talking to me.
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Hey, I get this. For me, I’m extremely socially awkward and lack a good bit of social awareness, but it took me taking baby steps to finally start improving.
What I did for myself, I created a sorta mantra I say before going out, it goes something like, “The more mistakes I make the more I learn (from them).” I have many more, but this is the one I use the most because of my paranoia of dealing with future embarrassment.😅
I also allow myself to let the thought pass and question what could I do different in the future to avoid this situation again. It hurts in the moment to remember, but it’ll help you later.
These were just what I’ve learned to do, it may not be the right way of the healthiest, but it’s forcing myself into a more “positive” mindset.
I hope this helps❤️ (I wrote this at night btw, sorry if it didn’t make sense😅)
Sometimes, there will be incidents where we “fail” in a way. This is a learning experience and you should treat it as such.
I also try to say to myself “I did X back then, but now I know that X isn’t the answer.” Sometimes, you have a definite answer such as C is the definition of an adjective and V is the definition of an adverb, but sometimes, it is not as black and white.
Life is a whole learning experience and maybe in the future, you can try and pass on your experiences so that others don’t make the same mistake. That’s what I do and it has helped a lot of people.
I like to tell myself nobody cares. Honestly, we can name 100 embarrassing things about ourselves but could you do the same about someone else?
You’re not alone in this.
You are overthinking it. Social faux paus are part of life. If you didn’t have them, you wouldn’t be human.
Watch the Youtube channel Charisma on Command, where they’ll help you with addressing things like this. One great strategy is to turn that embarrassment into a strength.
For instance if I’m giving a speech to a group of people, I break the ice about how awkward it is to be in front of a crowd and make some joke about it, which make people feel more at ease and relate to me better, which helps me perform better.
Lockpicking Lawyer has an hour presentation on Youtube. His presentation was an excellent example of how he used his nerdy engineering / law presentation skills to amazing effect.