Last week, something unexpected happened which somewhat has a big chance of ruining my short-term goals. Especially when these goals were dependent on how much I am making.

Overthinking made me numb and I couldn't find enough strength to finish any tasks I had the rest of the week. Now, this scenario isn't new to me. I had a similar episode a few months ago which ended up in a nasty situation that resulted in getting my first negative review from a client and putting my contracts in danger.

My biggest mistake was my tendency to shut myself for days without informing anyone. That meant not telling anyone I would not be working for a couple of days. My energy was spent on overthinking and I no longer had enough mental stamina to function. If I had been employed, giving time off to be depressed or mope is not valid. I always felt like I wasn't allowed to be depressed when there was too much work to do. I have a tendency to shut everything I felt because it was not valid.

From that mistake, I learned two things about myself. First, I am no longer stuck in a 9-5 job where I need to work even if I am not feeling mentally or emotionally well. Second, I am afraid of talking about why I need time off.

Last week, I had to compromise with myself.

Something unexpected happened, I knew right away that I will be overthinking for the next couple of days so I sent an email to my clients about taking a few days off. I told the reason why to a few, others I didn't. Simply being out of reach is going to be enough.

Learning from mistakes is easier said than done. But I found that if you know yourself enough, you can find ways to deal with it. Acknowledge your fears. Try to find the reasons what were your fears that led to that mistake. Forgive yourself. Lastly, allow yourself to feel down or depressed. One of my biggest challenges is overthinking, and I have yet to find a way to overcome this. I allowed myself to overthink but cleared the way to upcoming mistakes brought about by this. As I write this, I am still a work in progress. What I have said here might be different weeks or months from now.

"You're going to eat your words", I hear other people say with disdain. Yes, I will eat my words. We all do even if we hate to admit that. We grow. We make mistakes. We learn.

I'm just hoping to finish up the work that was supposed to be finished last week. We can do this, Kay!