“True confidence is the ability to own and learn from our mistakes, without the prospect of shame or blame.”

~ Bill Crawford

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Confidence, Shame, & Blame

One of the things that is coming up a lot in my seminars is the tendency for people (either ourselves or others) reacting to criticism with either shame or blame. These are understandable reactions because they have been with us for quite some time, but I don’t think they are serving us.

Why? Because these reactions engage the lower 20% of the brain, and throw us into fight or flight (shame is flight, blame is fight). And, given that the solution to our problems rarely calls for a fight-or-flight reaction, and that quality decisions are not made by the lower 20% of the brain, these reactions don’t, as a rule, result in happiness or success.

Therefore, I suggest we look for alternatives when dealing with a mistake or criticism from others. The alternative I suggest is confidence, or the ability to look at a problem or mistake as good information about what worked or what didn’t, and use that knowledge to create a vision of the future that makes a statement about who we are (we are people who own and learn from our mistakes) and that we would recommend to those we love.

Of course, this is easier said than done because, as mentioned, shame and blame have been with us for quite sometime. However, it is important to know that we were not born with these reactions. In other words, babies don’t feel shame, nor do they look for someone to blame when something goes wrong. Shame was taught to us by (hopefully) well-meaning adults who were trying to keep us from making mistakes. Blame is what we create ourselves to avoid feeling shame.

What this means is that we all have some pretty well-traveled neural pathways in our brain that can make the feelings of shame or blame feel very familiar. However, if we have determined that these reactions aren’t serving us, and/or that we don’t want to deal with mistakes or criticism from a shame/blame perspective, we can begin to create new neural pathways that allow us to access the clear, confident, creative part of who we are and bring this new awareness to our vision of the future.

The key is looking at a mistake as a “mis-take,” or an action that we took that missed (Did you know that the word “sin” was originally an archery term? It meant to “miss the mark). When we can interpret a problem from this perspective, we can then ask ourselves what I call a “neocortex question” (or a question that can only be answered from the upper 80% of the brain) such as, “Okay, knowing what I know now, how would I do this differently in the future?”

This has us owning the mistake (versus looking for someone to blame) but not feeling shame because we are focusing on what we learned, and how this will improve our life in the future. It actually becomes something to celebrate!

The good news is that my “Life from the Top of The Mind” philosophy is specifically designed to show us how to shift from the brainstem to the neocortex, and use this upper 80% of the brain to address whatever problems need addressing (either in ourselves or others). If this is something you would like to instill in your organization (or your life), I suggest you contact me and let’s discuss how to make this happen, because until we reject the old reactions of shame and blame, the confidence we need to succeed and create the life we want will allude us…and that would truly be a shame.

Take care and God bless, Dr. Bill