A thought occurred to me recently, and the more I sat with it, the more uncomfortable it became. When I make a mistake, I tend to see it in black and white. I should have known better. I should have done more. I should have seen it coming.
There’s very little middle ground in my own thinking. I either got it right or I didn’t. Success or failure. Productive or lazy. Smart or stupid. It’s an exhausting way to keep score.
Yet when someone else makes a mistake, my reaction is often completely different.
“They’re only human.”
“Everyone has an off day.”
“They probably had a lot going on.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Those are words I find myself saying to other people with genuine sincerity.
So why don’t I believe them when they’re directed back at me?
The contradiction struck me recently during an ordinary conversation. I realized that I often extend grace to other people almost automatically. I don’t expect perfection from my friends, colleagues, or the people I interact with every day. In fact, I know perfection isn’t possible.
Life happens. People oversleep and forget things. They miss deadlines. They say something they wish they could take back or spend more money than they intended. I could go on.
My instinct isn’t to condemn them but to understand them.
Yet if I do one of those very same things, the conversation inside my own head changes completely.
How could you be so careless?
You should have planned better.
You knew better than that.
It’s remarkable how quickly compassion disappears when I’m the one who needs it. I suspect I’m not alone.
Many of us carry around two sets of standards. One is reserved for everyone else, and it’s surprisingly reasonable. The other is reserved exclusively for ourselves, and it’s almost impossible to satisfy.
Think about the conversations you have with friends or co-workers. A friend tells you they made a mistake and you tell them it’s okay and that things will work out.
A coworker makes an honest mistake. You help solve the problem instead of reminding them about it for the next six months.
We’re often quite good at putting mistakes into perspective when they belong to someone else, and yet, we turn around and deny ourselves that same perspective.
I’ve noticed this pattern in my own life more times than I care to admit. If I take an afternoon off, there’s a voice that says I should have been working.
If I don’t finish everything on my list, I can focus on what didn’t get done instead of appreciating what did. If I make a financial decision I later regret, I can replay it far longer than I ever would if a friend told me the exact same story.
Objectively, I know that’s unfair. Emotionally, it can be hard to remember.
Maybe that’s because we know our own intentions, fears, and failures so intimately. We don’t just judge today’s mistake; we connect it to every other mistake we’ve ever made. Suddenly, a small misstep becomes evidence in a trial that has been going on for years.
With other people, we don’t have that burden. We see one moment in a much larger life, so we’re naturally more forgiving.
What if we treated ourselves the same way? What if we looked at one bad day as just that – a bad day? What if an unproductive afternoon didn’t erase a productive week? What if a mistake simply meant we were human?
None of this means lowering our standards or refusing to take responsibility. Accountability matters as does learning from our mistakes – but so does fairness with ourselves.
I’ve spent most of my life expecting more from myself than I ever expected from the people around me. There are times when that has pushed me to work harder and keep moving forward.
There are also times when it has made me unnecessarily harsh toward the one person I spend every minute of every day with.
Maybe the goal isn’t to expect less from ourselves but to simply offer ourselves the same patience we already know how to offer everyone else.
After all, if the people in our lives deserve a little grace when they stumble, we do too.
johnberkovich.com 