We all miss the take sometimes.
Flukes. Stupid decisions. Wrong turns. Wrong relationships.
We choose a partner who drains our spirit, sign contracts blindly, buy a house with a cracked foundation, or stay in a soul-crushing job far too long. I call these errors in judgment.
Naming them errors frames the situation as an ineffective cognitive choice. This label preserves your sense of self. It identifies a specific action. It isolates the choice from your identity.
Some errors cause a temporary setback. We brush those off quickly. Others demand years of our time and drain our emotional bank account. The pain grows when you obsess over the outcome. Focus on the cause to find clarity.
NLP circles often promote the mantra that failure is merely feedback. This claim is false. Failure exists. Real life delivers harsh consequences for choosing the wrong path, the wrong time, or the wrong people.
Too many of us follow the rhythm of a swinging pendulum.
On one side, you encounter the hustle mentality. You get excited about an outcome. You push through exhaustion. You ignore every red flag. You execute until an inevitable crash forces you to stop.
On the other side, you encounter the protective mentality. You ruminate over the right outcome to choose. You overthink every detail. You wait for a perfect moment that never arrives. You watch the opportunity vanish. This timeline pattern alternates between frantic action and paralyzed hesitation.
Stopping the pendulum brings you relief.
- Name your errors to remove the cognitive friction in your mind.
- Forgive yourself and heal your history.
- Build trust in your intuition to reclaim your self-reliance.
January 2 is a great day to start. Look back at your behavioral choices from 2025. Identify the errors in judgment you made during the year. For each one, ask yourself:
- What valuable thing did I learn from that experience?
- What can I learn from it as an outsider, an uninvolved observer?
To plan the year ahead, ask one final question: who can I help this year?
I hope that’s helpful.
Happy New Year, Shlomo Vaknin, C.Ht Erickson Institute
This is a copy of the newsletter that was sent out on January 2nd, 2026.