Advice
One moment everything seems to be moving forward. Then one mistake. And suddenly it feels as if you’ve fallen into the deepest, darkest abyss with no way out.
But everyone makes mistakes.
Most mistakes are not fatal. Some are easily fixable with a bit of effort, while others feel so devastating that they seem to collapse your entire life: A relationship that didn’t work out; trusting someone you shouldn’t have; losing a job; losing a fortune; losing your reputation.
Suddenly it feels like the wheels came off your car and you crashed into a wall or flew off a cliff altogether. The real damage of a mistake is not the mistake itself—it’s losing trust in yourself. And once that feeling sets in, everything else that was good in front of you begins to lose its meaning.
You begin questioning your judgment, your instincts, your ability to make decisions at all. So you start dropping the ball on everything else, and as a result you lose trust in yourself even further.
It is healthy to go through stages of grief. The problem is that some people get stuck there for a very long time. When trust in yourself collapses, even small decisions can begin to feel impossible. The only way to restore trust in yourself is by making another choice right in front of you.
One choice at a time.
Right this moment, do I continue to sit on the couch or do I get up and move? Do I continue to worry about what might happen tomorrow, or do I make the difficult phone call I’ve been putting off?
Do I ruminate about everything wrong in my life, or do I notice the blessings that happened just this week — my health, my friendships, my family?
Do I call to apologize, or do I continue to make up excuses?
Small, aligned decisions rebuild the sense that you can steer your life again.
In Kabbalah, the Arizal describes Shvirat HaKelim, the shattering of the vessels. According to this teaching, the world itself began in a state of fracture. The vessels meant to hold divine light shattered and scattered.
Our task is tikkun, to repair the vessel so it can hold the light that was intended for it. We are here to participate in that repair.
Failure is not falling. Failure is staying down.
Don’t compare yourself to others. Look at the one choice in front of you and make a better one. Then make another. And then another.
Some choices become automatic over time. Brushing your teeth before bedtime, washing your hands before a meal, or cleaning up after yourself come naturally because you’ve made those decisions enough times.
Other choices require more intentional effort.
With each decision you make, your point of choice — Nekudat HaBechira — shifts forward. What once required effort becomes natural, and a new level of choice emerges. Trust in yourself is rebuilt through those small choices.
Sometimes, however, after a painful mistake, instead of choosing again and rebuilding that trust, you may be tempted to outsource your decision-making to a therapist, a kabbalist, a psychic, or some other supposed authority, hoping someone else can steer your life more safely than you can.
While it is wise to consider different perspectives, steer clear of anyone who claims to see into your future or insists they know what is best for your life.
Advice can be valuable. Guidance can be wise.
But the choice itself cannot be outsourced.
Because the moment you relinquish your choices to someone else, you are not only giving away your power, you also surrender the very thing you are trying to rebuild — trust in your own judgment.
One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is the freedom to choose, to practice choosing and to get better at it. Children begin with small, contained choices.
Red shirt or blue shirt? Homework now or after snack? Carrots or broccoli?
By offering choices, you strengthen a child’s ability to decide. Over time, that ability becomes character.
Adults are no different. When life seems to collapse, you rebuild it through contained choices.
What is the next choice?
Even in extreme circumstances, when you are stripped of your fundamental freedom, you are still faced with choices to make.
Joseph made choices from inside an Egyptian prison. Betrayed by his brothers, falsely accused, and forgotten by those he helped, he still chose to interpret dreams, to remain useful, and to stay engaged with life rather than sink into bitterness.
Natan Sharansky made choices inside a Soviet prison cell. During years of isolation, he refused to sign false confessions and held on to his identity and dignity even when the cost was more years of imprisonment. To keep his mind from collapsing in solitary confinement, he played entire games of chess in his head.
Viktor Frankl wrote from a concentration camp that the last human freedom is the freedom to choose one’s response.
You may not have chosen the situation you are in, but you can still choose how you operate within it.
More recently, Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi, who was chained and starved during his captivity in Gaza after October 7, has spoken about the mental choices he made each day to stay alive.
Choice is where freedom lives. You can follow every rule and still fall flat on your face. You can attempt to do everything “right” and still fall behind. Life does not distribute rewards in neat moral order.
But every moment you are still choosing.
Give yourself a moment to grieve when things fall apart. Set a limit on it. Then return to the next available point of choice. The next decision.
Choose again.
Because when you do make a mistake, the only real loss is staying down so long that you forget you can stand.
With every choice you make, you rebuild, you rise, you advance.
Choose again.
Yaffa Borukhova is a writer and host of the StreetSmarts MBA podcast. She is also the author/illustrator of children’s book You Don’t Look Jewish! a book about identity and belonging, available on Amazon.
By Yaffa Borukhova