You know that jolt you get when you realise you have messed something up? For me it is physical. My chest tightens, my stomach drops, my brain launches into worst case scenarios, and suddenly one small mistake feels like proof that I am useless and that everything is ruined.
If that sounds familiar, you are in good company. We are wired to worry about social standing and competence. The hard part is that anxiety makes the little thing blow up into a catastrophe inside our heads.
For me personally, the anxiety is far worse when the mistake involves disappointing someone else. If it only affects me I can usually shrug and move on. But when I imagine I have let someone down, whether a friend, a colleague, or a client, the shame and panic feel overwhelming. That fear of being judged, of being suddenly seen as unreliable, is what shakes our confidence most. It is not about the technical error. It is about what I think others will now think about me...
Just the other day I was looking after a puppy for a new client. He had an accident and pee’d on the owner’s sofa. I did what I could to clean it up and apologised profusely. The owner was not particularly understanding, but they did eventually let it go. Still, I am pretty sure I lost them as a client. And even though the situation was over, I carried the anxiety with me for the rest of the day and into the next. My stomach was in knots, my brain replayed the whole thing, and I kept asking myself if I should have done something differently (in hindsight, probably, but what's done is done).
That is what anxiety after a mistake really is. It is not the event itself - it is the story we tell ourselves about what that mistake means.
Anxiety after a mistake makes us think:
One slip means I cannot do anything right
I am going to disappoint everyone and lose their trust
I should give up before I make another mistake as that is the only way to feel safe in the future
These thoughts are powerful because they hit at the core of how we want to be seen. For those of us who have a history of people pleasing, the fear of disappointing someone else is especially strong. We do not just feel guilty. We feel like we have lost our entire worth.
The good news is that we can learn to interrupt these spirals. Not perfectly, not instantly, but enough to stop one slip from turning into a story that we are broken or completely "useless". Here are the practices that help me most.
Ground your body. Put your feet on the floor, take three slow breaths, and notice 3 different things in the room around you. This calms the nervous system.
Name the thought. Instead of “I’m useless,” try “I’m having the thought that I’m useless.” It creates distance.
Speak kindly to yourself. Imagine what you would say to a friend in the same situation. Borrow that compassion.
Take a small action. Apologise, correct, or make a plan to fix what you can. Action breaks rumination.
Choose how you want to be seen. We cannot stop caring about perception overnight. But we can decide: I’d rather be seen as human and trustworthy (owning up) than as someone who hides and pretends.
Write it down. Keep a small “wins file” or journal where you note moments you recovered from mistakes. When anxiety tells you you are useless, you will have evidence against it.
Expose yourself gently. Make small, safe mistakes on purpose - like sending a text with a typo - and notice that the world does not collapse.
Reframe failure. Ask: what can I learn from this? What is my next step? Mistakes become feedback instead of proof of inadequacy.
Talk it out. Share mistakes with a trusted friend. Most will respond with kindness and their own stories, which instantly reduces shame.
I may have lost that new client after the puppy accident, and that still stings... But what I keep reminding myself is that one client choosing not to use my services going forward, does not define me as a person or as someone capable of caring for animals. I'm highly capable, but I made one split error of judgement. Mistakes hurt, but they do not erase the good we do or the times we get it right. More often than not, we do far more good than bad!
We cannot always stop the sting of making a mistake. But each time we practise grounding, reframing, and taking small actions, we give ourselves a new experience: we survive the mistake, we repair if we can, and we keep moving. Over time, that changes the story. Mistakes stop being "proof" that we are "useless". They become proof that we are human, and constant perfection is impossible.