26.295 – A Mistake Is an Event, Not a Whole Identity
“Can treating oneself with compassion after making a mistake increase self-improvement motivation?”
Juliana G. Breines and Serena Chen, Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation (2012, abstract)
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Staying With the Mistake
When we have let someone down, being kind to ourselves can feel premature. Surely we should first prove that we understand what we did. The question above, posed by social and health psychologist Juliana G. Breines and her coauthor Serena Chen, takes that hesitation seriously: could a compassionate response actually help someone want to improve?
In one experiment, participants recalled something they had done wrong and wrote about it under different instructions. Those prompted to respond with self-compassion reported greater motivation to make amends and avoid repeating it than participants in the comparison conditions. The study measured that motivation, rather than whether they later followed through. It gives us a reason to examine the assumption that harshness is necessary for responsibility.
Away from the research setting, the question can arise in the few minutes between receiving a complaint and answering it. We may be so caught up in what the mistake says about us that we struggle to respond to the person affected. In the fictional scene that follows, a volunteer named Nina is about to answer a message about someone she left waiting.
After the Comment
Nina is clearing breakfast dishes when she sees Ruth’s message. The neighborhood gardening group changed its meeting place the previous afternoon because the community room was unavailable. Nina had offered to tell everyone. Ruth went to the original address.
“I waited outside for twenty minutes. I had to leave before I could get to the new place. Please make sure I get the update next time.”
Nina sets down a mug. She remembers sending the message, checking the address, adding directions from the bus stop. She opens the conversation on her phone and counts the names. Ruth’s is missing. Nina used an older message thread, from before Ruth joined.
For a moment, the problem is clear. Then another thought arrives: I always let people down. She remembers a birthday card sent late and a favor she promised her sister but forgot. Neither has anything to do with the gardening group, yet both now seem to confirm what Ruth must be thinking. The careful directions she wrote yesterday look almost embarrassing. She went to the trouble of being helpful and still left someone out.
She starts an answer: “I’m so sorry. I’m hopeless at this sort of thing.” She reads it and adds, “You must think I’m completely unreliable.” Her thumb hovers over the send button.
Ruth has said nothing about Nina’s character. She has described a wasted journey and asked to receive the next update. Nina knows this when she looks back at the message. Still, her proposed reply feels emotionally accurate. She is upset, and she wants Ruth to know she is upset. A short acknowledgment seems too small for how ashamed she feels.
Nina wants Ruth to understand that she cares. Condemning herself feels like a way to make that visible. Many of us have written a similar sentence, hoping the strength of our regret would convey something a simple apology seemed to leave out.
Reading it from Ruth’s side, though, Nina notices how much of the message is about herself. Ruth might feel drawn into reassuring her. She could also pass over those sentences entirely and still be left wondering whether Nina had worked out how to include her next time.
Nina deletes the last sentence. She leaves the phone on the counter for a few minutes. When she picks it up again, Ruth’s original message is still there, more specific than the argument Nina has been having with herself.
What the Verdict Leaves Out
“I always let people down” sounds severe, but it offers surprisingly little guidance. It does not tell Nina how she omitted Ruth, whether anyone else missed the update, or what she needs to change before the next meeting. Those questions require her to look closely at an event she would rather stop thinking about.
She opens the current membership list beside the message thread. Ruth is the only person missing. Nina had chosen a familiar conversation without comparing its recipients with the list. Now she can see where she needed to pause. The list was available yesterday, too.
She also has to resist filling in the gaps. Ruth says she waited twenty minutes and could not attend. Nina does not know whether Ruth rearranged work, paid for transport, or had been particularly looking forward to the meeting. She can acknowledge the inconvenience Ruth described without inventing a larger story in which she has ruined someone’s day.
Looking this closely is uncomfortable. Nina pictures Ruth outside the community room, checking the time. She had agreed to pass on information Ruth needed, and she had the means to check that everyone was included. There is something here to acknowledge even if she never intended to leave anyone out.
She volunteered because she wanted the group to run smoothly. Remembering that does not remove the inconvenience, but it helps her understand why the complaint stings. She values being someone people can count on. For a few minutes, worrying about that picture of herself has occupied more of her attention than the person who was counting on her.
The move from judging a whole person to examining a particular action also appears in research on shame and guilt. In their review of moral emotions, June Tangney, Jeff Stuewig, and Debra Mashek discuss shame as often involving a negative view of the self, and guilt as focusing more on behavior. The terms have varying definitions and measures. For Nina, the useful question is simply what she can say about the mistake that will help her address it.
“I used the old thread and failed to check the names” gives her that description. It leaves room to ask whether this was a one-time oversight or something she has done before. If she has repeatedly missed people, narrowing attention to this event must not become a way of forgetting the pattern. She would need to examine the earlier instances too, and perhaps reconsider how she manages the task.
Looking back at several missed commitments might reveal that she has taken on more than she can reliably do. If reminders have failed before, adding another would deserve some scrutiny. She might need to reduce what she promises or step back from a role. Those can be difficult decisions, and they depend on a clearer account of her limits than “I always let people down” provides.
For Nina, the immediate work is modest. She needs to answer the person she left waiting and make the next message less likely to omit her. She can do both while she is still embarrassed. She tries to allow herself the patience she would offer another volunteer who had made the same mistake. Waiting until she feels like a competent person again would leave Ruth waiting longer.
An Answer You Can Act On
Nina returns to the unfinished reply. She removes the sentence about being hopeless and writes: “I’m sorry, Ruth. I sent the update to an old thread and didn’t check the names. You were left out. I’ll check against the membership list next time. Would you like the notes from yesterday?”
She reads it once and adds, “I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing.” She still feels worse than the message sounds, but it gives Ruth an explanation and answers her request. Nina sends it, then adds a reminder beside the next meeting date: check the membership list before sending.
Later, Ruth asks for the notes. Her reply is brief. Nina feels a familiar urge to read the tone for signs that everything is all right between them. She could send another apology, explain how busy yesterday was, or ask whether Ruth is still upset. Instead, she sends the notes Ruth requested.
Ruth may remain annoyed; she may simply be occupied. Nina cannot tell from a request for meeting notes, and she finds that uncertainty difficult. She would like some sign that Ruth still considers her dependable. For now, she has to leave the exchange without it.
Over lunch, she catches herself returning to the message. Nothing new has arrived. She has answered Ruth and sent what she asked for; rereading the conversation will not reveal an opinion Ruth has not expressed. Nina puts the phone away. The next useful information about her reliability will come from what happens when she sends another update.
A few days before the next meeting, Nina prepares the reminder. The location is unchanged. She nearly sends it from the conversation already open on her phone. Then she sees the note on her calendar and checks the names. Ruth is included. So is a new member who joined that week.
The extra check takes a minute. Nina knows she could skip it on a busier morning, so she leaves the calendar note in place for the following month. She will have to keep using the list as people join or leave. Her responsibility continues after the uncomfortable conversation has faded.
In our own lives, the event we need to face may be harder to put right. Someone may have lost more than an evening, or heard the same promise before. Describing what happened accurately can bring those consequences into view, including what remains beyond our power to change. We may need help deciding what to do. A judgment that we are hopeless can feel final while leaving all of those questions open.
Nina checks the address once more and sends the reminder. She is still sorry about the wasted journey. This time, Ruth has the information.
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Practice: Give the Event Its Own Description
Objective: Examine a mistake without turning it into a verdict about your entire character. Time: 9 minutes.
Choose an ordinary, manageable example. This is a private reflection; you do not need to share what you write or contact anyone. For the first minute, write the sentence that has been repeating in your mind. Perhaps it begins “I always” or “I’m the sort of person who.” Record it as a thought you are having, rather than a conclusion you must defend.
Spend the next two minutes describing the event in observable terms. What did you do or leave undone? What had you agreed to do? Use enough detail that another person could understand the incident without needing to accept your judgment of yourself.
For two more minutes, separate known consequences from assumptions. Include what someone actually told you. Put imagined reactions elsewhere on the page. If something important is unknown, leave it unknown for now.
Use the next two minutes to identify the part that was yours to handle. Consider whether this has happened before and whether your account leaves anything out. You can recognize limited time or unclear instructions while still examining a choice you made.
In the final two minutes, name one feasible next step. It might be checking information, completing an overlooked task, or deciding what you need to ask before responding. Keep it within your role and circumstances.
Outcome: Finish with a specific account of the event and one action you can consider. You do not have to feel better about yourself before the account becomes useful.
Scientific Summary
Breines and Chen (2012) reported four experiments on self-compassion and self-improvement motivation. The transgression experiment, with a final sample of 91 undergraduates, supports a limited claim about reported motivation after a writing exercise. It does not establish lasting behavioral change, successful repair, or how someone harmed would experience an apology.
Tangney, Stuewig, and Mashek (2007) review evidence on moral emotions, including distinctions between evaluating the self and evaluating behavior. Emotional experiences overlap, and the review does not justify labeling every instance of shame harmful or every instance of guilt helpful.
Nina and Ruth are fictional. Their exchange and the nine-minute practice illustrate the essay’s argument; neither is a tested intervention from these studies.
References
Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599.
Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145.
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