One Mistake Doesn’t Define You

76 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

Three things for you to think about

It’s: “I did a bad thing,” not “I am a bad person.”
It’s: “I tried and failed,” not “I am a failure.”
It’s: “I did it wrong,” not “I am wrong.”

How you talk to yourself defines your Self. Be careful what you say.

Two things for you to ask yourself

What are some of the ways you talk to yourself that are unhelpful? How can you rephrase them?

One thing for you to try this week

Stop defining yourself in a way that hurts you this week. Let me know how it goes.

Solved Podcast: How to Let Go of Your Shame

Chances are, there’s something in your life you feel deeply ashamed about—something you’ve never told anyone, something you can’t even admit to yourself. In this Solved episode, Drew and I go deep into the emotion we all experience but almost no one wants to talk about: shame. Where it comes from, why it’s so powerful, how it screws up our lives—and more importantly, how to deal with it.

We cover the biology of shame, the psychology, the evolutionary roots, and how modern life (especially the internet) completely messes with our shame systems. We talk about healthy vs. toxic shame, how it shows up in addiction, relationships, perfectionism, and self-sabotage, and why most of us either try to hide from it or end up being controlled by it. You’ll also hear from members of my team about how shame shaped their lives in surprising ways.

As always, this episode is brutally honest, deeply researched, and sprinkled with a few bad jokes. But more than anything, I hope it gives you the awareness—and the tools—to start facing whatever it is you’ve been avoiding. Because you can’t outrun your shame. But you can learn to live with it.

Listen to Solved: How to Let Go of Your Shame

Solved Membership: New Course on Shame

The Solved episode above is the last podcast you’ll ever need on Shame. But your journey of learning to live a healthy life with shame doesn’t have to end there.

If you want to take action to understand, reframe, and effectively navigate shame so it stops sabotaging your life and starts guiding your growth, I’ve created Momentum The Solved Membership to help.

As of today, Momentum has been officially dubbed The Solved Membership. Because once you have all the information you could ever need to solve life’s toughest problems, there’s only one thing left to do—take action.

Inside The Solved Membership, we’re kicking off a whole new course on Shame, breaking down the Solved episode into bite-sized prompts, exercises, and action steps. By the end of the Shame, Solved Course, you’ll learn how shame actually functions in the brain and why it’s evolutionarily designed to protect, not punish you. You’ll discover the difference between healthy and toxic shame, and how to recognize which one is driving your behavior. You’ll gain practical tools for responding to shame in ways that build connection, resilience, and self-respect.

And you’ll do it all with the kind of community support that Debbie experienced: “I have been craving a community like this. A community that dives deep and doesn’t cause stress. A community of people who are looking to improve in similar areas as I am.”

It’s only $24.99 per month to join. And unlike those awful gym contracts that force you to cancel 5 months in advance to get any money back, there is no commitment required and a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. I’m also offering a hefty discount off the annual rate—because let’s be honest, the good stuff takes longer than a month. Racking up those small wins over time is how real change happens.

Learn more and join The Solved Membership now

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to reframe the story around your pain so it helps you heal, not hurt more.

Elena retold her story and avoided the Buddha’s “second arrow,” i.e. our reaction to the first arrow of actual pain:

Recently, something awful happened at my workplace. It was an accident, but it came down to a very poor decision that I made.

I felt truly terrible, and honestly I was wallowing in guilt and misery for a few days.

But luckily I read your newsletter and listen to podcasts about stoicism. And I was able to realize that 1), things could have gone much worse, and 2), it might have been a harsh lesson that I had to learn in order to avoid much greater pain in the future.

So I think the second arrow just grazed me.

Take care, thanks for sharing your lessons with us all!

Ineke is making the most of a painful situation:

I am currently ‘in between homes’ and let me tell you about pain.

BUT, even though I have every right to break down, I don’t. I keep moving forward and keep telling myself that I have asked for this. Not as punishment, but as cleansing. This situation is helping me shed everything that isn’t serving my highest good, and I am learning about what is truly important.

Not only that, I am also meeting a LOT of kind people—more than I would have had I been in different circumstances. I am finding many blessings everyday to be grateful for and I know that this mindset is what will push me through this dark period and into my next phase in life. I will come through stronger than ever, I know this for certain.

Finally, one reader is hoping, through their pain, to heal others:

I’m not usually one to share but the distinction between pain and suffering really resonated.

My mother committed suicide when I was 14. That was more than 40 years ago. At first I blamed myself because I didn’t realize she was suffering as much as she was, and if I had gone downstairs and found her earlier, we might have saved her. My feelings then shifted to blaming others. The pain and suffering subsided but continued at some level for many years (decades).

About ten years ago I changed the internal dialogue and decided to respect my mother’s decision to end her life rather than look to blame myself and others. Her decision now sits more comfortably with me. I accept her choice, and while I still miss having her in my life, I no longer suffer with the endless need to understand her reasoning, or lack thereof, or how someone else’s actions, including mine, may have changed the outcome.

Maybe these thoughts can help someone else who is dealing with the pain, suffering and guilt that is the result of having a loved one take their own life.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
My Website – My Books – My YouTube Channel – My Podcast