The idea that “You deserve better” is applied a lot in dating and relationship advice.
It’s used to explain away breakups: “Don’t worry about him or her, you deserve better anyway.” or “It’s not you, it’s me, you deserve better.”
It’s even used to explain away failures: “You’re awesome, and if someone doesn’t see that, you deserve better.”
This advice suggests ignoring all of your failures. Forget about the things that aren’t going right, and put them out of mind and move on.
Sounds like a great way to continually make the same mistakes.
Believing you always “deserve better” is a defense mechanism. It keeps you from confronting failure, and learning from your mistakes.
Let’s be honest: you did something wrong in practically every setback you’ve experienced.
Now, you may actually deserve better, but when you do something wrong, you should learn from it, not ignore it.
Failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s a chance to ask, why did this happen? It may be tough to figure out yourself, so ask people that were there. Listen to the feedback and confront reality. It’s only failure if you don’t learn something.
I’ve learned from misery more than a few times. I’ve lost jobs, opportunities, and women. Every time I wanted to think I deserved better, but what would that have accomplished?
What would I have learned?
Use failure to create a plan to improve and make a commitment to work on being better each day. Don’t allow yourself to become a victim of your surroundings. Things don’t happen to you, they are partially caused by you. You don’t deserve better. You deserve to be better for no one other than yourself.
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Benjamin Ritter, MBA, MPH, is an interpersonal, dating, and relationship consultant, author of The Essentials, co-host of the Suave Lover podcast, curator of the Interfaith Relationships workshop, and the Values Systems workshop, freelance expert and writer, and healthcare executive. He has years of direct client, personal, and social experiences towards improving and solving internal development, dating, and relationship situations. For more information, go to: http://www.benjamin-ritter.com.
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