FIRST INSTINCT IS TO KICK MYSELF.
Therapists have told me that one of the secrets to dealing with all mistakes and failures is to not personalize them. Honestly, I didn’t know that you could choose to not take a mistake personally. Whenever I mess up my first instinct is to kick myself. Most the time I just want to beat my head against a wall even if it is something as common as forgetting the lyrics to a song.
THE BLAME GAME
So how exactly do you de-personalize your own dumb moves and miserable flops? The answer is simple: by focusing on what happened, rather than who is to blame. Think of it as letting yourself out of jail. If you want to spend a couple of minutes behind bars (I mean figuratively, not in San Quentin or anything), that’s fine, but then post bond and bust out. Examine where you went wrong, commit to making it right or to making a better choice next time, and then move forward.
You don’t need to keep score either. Just drive on. Let the past fade out of sight in the rear view mirror, and focus on the road ahead. You can’t change what happened, but you can control how you respond. When thinking about my biggest blunders and bust-ups I prefer to hold onto this thought: I can use my failures and mistakes as opportunities to get better and be better.
I find it crazy that we are often willing to forgive our friends and loved ones for screwing up yet we refuse to forgive ourselves. I’ll write more about the awesome power of forgiveness later. Just remember for now that this simple act has many great uses, and one of the most important is the self-application. If you aren’t at least as good a friend to yourself as you are to others then you need to work on loving that person in the mirror.
YET, I KEPT MESSING UP AND LETTING MY MISTAKES DRAG ME DOWN FARTHER AND FARTHER.
Simple to state, tough to do, I know.
For the longest time I beat myself up over every little thing. I was like a one man fight club. There are two wrong ways to handle mistakes. One is to pay no attention to them at all and just keep making them. The other is to get all angry and depressed but not learn from them or make corrections. I did all of the above in my early years with Backstreet Boys.
There I was, living a dream come true. Millions of talented people would have given anything to be in our group. Yet, I kept messing up and letting my mistakes drag me down farther and farther. Many of my screw-ups were understandable or even unavoidable. I was so young when we began touring the world. I entered my teen years—those years when we are expected to make mistakes—as a celebrity pop star who made the tabloids, fan magazines and Internet news every time I flirted with the wrong girl, forgot to leave a tip, or was caught in the wrong club. Tabloid writers and celebrity-stalking reporters made up some of the stuff they wrote about me, but I also made mistakes that the public never learned about.
BAD MOVES
Kevin and the other BSB members saw me drinking and getting in trouble and all they could do was shake their heads. Howie nailed it when he told a reporter a few years ago, “Sometimes the last people you want to take advice from are the people closest to you. Nick was on a journey to find himself. When he was scolded, rather than motivating him, he curled up and crawled into a darker hole.”
…I BEGAN MY HEADLONG DIVE INTO THAT DEEP DARK HOLE…
They told me that I had the potential to be a better person and to make more of my talents. They knew I had a good heart and soul, but I wasn’t using my head. The guys warned me many times that my partying was out of control and that I was headed for serious trouble. They worried that I could destroy my career and seriously damage theirs, too.
Yet, when the other members of Backstreet tried to help me, I fought them tooth and nail. Looking back, I realize I should have been much more accountable to them, not just from a business standpoint but because they cared about me as a
Therapists have told me that one of the secrets to dealing with all mistakes and failures is to not personalize them. Honestly, I didn’t know that you could choose to not take a mistake personally. Whenever I mess up my first instinct is to kick myself. Most the time I just want to beat my head against a wall even if it is something as common as forgetting the lyrics to a song.
THE BLAME GAME
So how exactly do you de-personalize your own dumb moves and miserable flops? The answer is simple: by focusing on what happened, rather than who is to blame. Think of it as letting yourself out of jail. If you want to spend a couple of minutes behind bars (I mean figuratively, not in San Quentin or anything), that’s fine, but then post bond and bust out. Examine where you went wrong, commit to making it right or to making a better choice next time, and then move forward.
You don’t need to keep score either. Just drive on. Let the past fade out of sight in the rear view mirror, and focus on the road ahead. You can’t change what happened, but you can control how you respond. When thinking about my biggest blunders and bust-ups I prefer to hold onto this thought: I can use my failures and mistakes as opportunities to get better and be better.
I find it crazy that we are often willing to forgive our friends and loved ones for screwing up yet we refuse to forgive ourselves. I’ll write more about the awesome power of forgiveness later. Just remember for now that this simple act has many great uses, and one of the most important is the self-application. If you aren’t at least as good a friend to yourself as you are to others then you need to work on loving that person in the mirror.
YET, I KEPT MESSING UP AND LETTING MY MISTAKES DRAG ME DOWN FARTHER AND FARTHER.
Simple to state, tough to do, I know.
For the longest time I beat myself up over every little thing. I was like a one man fight club. There are two wrong ways to handle mistakes. One is to pay no attention to them at all and just keep making them. The other is to get all angry and depressed but not learn from them or make corrections. I did all of the above in my early years with Backstreet Boys.
There I was, living a dream come true. Millions of talented people would have given anything to be in our group. Yet, I kept messing up and letting my mistakes drag me down farther and farther. Many of my screw-ups were understandable or even unavoidable. I was so young when we began touring the world. I entered my teen years—those years when we are expected to make mistakes—as a celebrity pop star who made the tabloids, fan magazines and Internet news every time I flirted with the wrong girl, forgot to leave a tip, or was caught in the wrong club. Tabloid writers and celebrity-stalking reporters made up some of the stuff they wrote about me, but I also made mistakes that the public never learned about.
BAD MOVES
Kevin and the other BSB members saw me drinking and getting in trouble and all they could do was shake their heads. Howie nailed it when he told a reporter a few years ago, “Sometimes the last people you want to take advice from are the people closest to you. Nick was on a journey to find himself. When he was scolded, rather than motivating him, he curled up and crawled into a darker hole.”
…I BEGAN MY HEADLONG DIVE INTO THAT DEEP DARK HOLE…
They told me that I had the potential to be a better person and to make more of my talents. They knew I had a good heart and soul, but I wasn’t using my head. The guys warned me many times that my partying was out of control and that I was headed for serious trouble. They worried that I could destroy my career and seriously damage theirs, too.
Yet, when the other members of Backstreet tried to help me, I fought them tooth and nail. Looking back, I realize I should have been much more accountable to them, not just from a business standpoint but because they cared about me as a
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