In my twenties, I was working full-time as an association membership director, and going to law school at night, taking five classes that first semester. Part of my job was to draft and publish the association's newsletter. An issue went out with a couple of typos.

Some of you have heard this story before. I beat myself up so bad about it you would have thought I’d threatened national security by leaking highly classified information.  My bosses were reasonable people. I did good work. But none of that mattered to me. I replayed the mistake for days and treated it as evidence of something larger and worse about me. No doubt some of this outsized response was influenced by the stress of juggling my job and the first year of law school. But I don’t think I’m the only one to have an experience of overreacting when I fail to meet my own expectations.

High standards, self-criticism, and self-blame can come with the expectations you impose on yourself. They are not limited to minor circumstances like this one. They show up when we don’t meet our own expectations in harder parts of life as well.  It’s when a standard leaves no space for a mistake to just be a mistake, that’s when the suffering starts.

What eventually changed wasn't my standards. I had to learn to stop treating every failure to meet my own expectations as a reflection of my worth. Through mindfulness, I began to practice letting go, non-judgment, self-compassion, and non-attachment. This helped me create space to give myself grace and not cling so tightly to specific outcomes.

I want to be clear that mindfulness isn’t a substitute for therapy where appropriate or desired. But the practice was instrumental in helping me make that shift. A colleague who was skeptical of "this mindfulness stuff" told me she believed it actually worked because she’d noticed over the years that I’d stopped beating myself up the way I used to. I didn’t realize anyone was watching me. She'd seen the before and the after. That was more convincing to her than any explanation I could have given.

I share this not because the transformation is finished but because how you relate to your failure to meet your own expectations can genuinely change. It’s not by caring less, lowering your standards, or failing to learn from your experiences. It's by loosening the grip of the story that says not meeting your expectations of yourself is a reflection of your value.

Mindful Invitation: When you fall short of your expectations, what do you make it mean about you?