Did You Screw Up? | 13

Did you screw up?

Maybe you cheated on her.
Maybe you lost yourself trying to make her happy.
Maybe you made mistakes during or after the breakup that you now regret.

If you’re carrying guilt, shame, or that heavy “I wish I did it differently” feeling — this episode is for you.

In today's episode, I break down why admitting your mistakes doesn’t make you weak — it actually makes you a good man.

You’ll learn:

• How to face your regrets without letting them destroy your confidence
• How to turn regret into powerful motivation instead of letting it keep you stuck
• A simple process to fix what you can, learn what you need to, and move forward as a stronger, wiser version of yourself
• Why becoming a better man through corrective action is one of the most masculine things you can do

This isn’t about beating yourself up or staying in guilt mode.
It’s about owning your past, cleaning up your mess, and using it as fuel to become the man you actually respect.

If you’re ready to stop carrying the weight of your mistakes and start turning them into your greatest comeback, this episode will show you exactly how.

Your mistakes don’t define you.
How you respond to them does.

Let’s turn your screw-ups into your strongest comeback yet. 

#BreakupRecovery #DivorceRecovery #MensMentalHealth #PersonalGrowth #SelfImprovement #RegretToGrowth #BecomingABetterMan #CorrectiveAction #PodcastForMen #BadassComeback

Hosted by Chris Ryan - Professional Life Coach | B.A. Psychology

Breakup and divorce recovery coaching for men

For coaching inquiries and general questions, email: coachchrisryan@gmail.com

*The BCP is 100% self-funded and does not run ads.

Keywords: breakup recovery for men, divorce recovery for men, rebuilding identity after breakup, masculine qualities after divorce, feeling incomplete after breakup, reclaiming masculinity post-breakup, life after divorce for men, men's self-improvement after breakup, healing from heartbreak men, post-breakup identity crisis men, divorced men recovery, broken up men healing, men's mental health after relationship ends.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good morning, gentlemen. I apologize for the late episode drop. This is my first day off in two weeks at my day job, and I was absolutely for ride yesterday. So I made the decision to give you guys quality over timeliness, took some much needed rest, woke up at six this morning to polish everything up and hit record. I appreciate your understanding, and I'm happy that you're still with me. Welcome back to the Badass Comeback Podcast. So today's episode is going to be a little bit different. Instead of the usual playbook, we're going to talk about moving on from the mistakes that you made in your relationship. And this isn't going to be some fluffy, just learn to forgive yourself and move on type stuff. We're going to break down some of the hidden realities of what your mistakes are actually telling you. And yeah, it's much more than now I know what not to do in the future. This is an area that I've certainly struggled with and still very much working on. And I wanted to share some insights that I've learned along the way. So clear your mind and be present with me. Let's begin. You know, when it comes to forgiving oneself for past mistakes, something I notice is that a lot of strong men have a really hard time with it. Because honestly, a strong man can be really hard on himself, especially when it comes to the self-talk that happens when he fucks up. It's probably something like, God, I was such an idiot. Why did I do that? Or I am never going to be able to forgive myself for this, stuff like that. And this can be anything from forgetting an equation on a math test to making an irreversible mistake that harms himself or others around him. Most strong men tend to beat themselves up, and yeah, that kind of self-talk, which is actually a form of self-punishment, if you really think about it, can actually be a good reinforcing tool to avoid that kind of mistake in the future. But still, the past is still there. It happened. And while we're so preoccupied with the past, it makes it difficult to live in the present and damn near impossible to envision the future. And for you guys listening whose relationship ended because of a mistake or mistakes that you made, I can totally understand how ruminating on it while in the aftermath of a breakup or divorce makes everything ten times worse. Because not only are you dealing with shit feelings about the mistake itself, you're also dealing with the shit feelings of not being with her anymore and possibly her not wanting to work things out or even fucking talk to you. I've been there several times. It's even worse than being cheated on, at least in my opinion. And for those of you listening who can't seem to let go of your mistakes and forgive yourself, I first want you to understand something.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

You are exactly what society needs more of. What do I mean by this?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Just the simple fact of you being mad at yourself or feeling bad for your mistakes makes you a good man. When you look in the mirror, you shouldn't see a failure. You should see a man who takes accountability, a man who is strong enough to admit when he's wrong and do anything necessary to avoid those mistakes in the future. Cause think of it. Do you think assholes, criminals, and reckless men have those qualities? When thieves rob a liquor store, do you think they give a shit about the clerk they're pointing a gun at? Or even the store owner's livelihood? How about when some douchebag makes fun of someone else in public and makes them feel shitty? Do you think they give a rat's ass about that person? Now let's step it up a few notches. What about dictators? When dictators slaughter thousands of their own people for rising up in protest against the regime, do you think they give a damn about their own citizens or their grieving family members? Guys, bad men are all around us. Evil, cold-blooded psychopaths. And it seems like every time you turn on the news, there's more dirtbags doing unspeakable acts to innocent people. Understand that our world's worst men are made of nothing but weakness. They are pathetic. Yeah, sure, some of them somehow work their way into positions of power, but deep down they have extremely fragile egos. They are immoral. They know what they're doing is wrong, but they don't give a fuck. Why? Because acting in good and virtuous ways requires strength. Admitting to themselves that they are doing something wrong also takes strength. It is not easy to admit to yourself that you fucked up. And they can't even do that. They're losers. We need less of them and more of you. So yeah, understand, boys, that you feel extremely guilty and mad at yourself for a reason. It doesn't mean that you're a failure. It doesn't mean that you're not worthy of love. It means you're a good man. Because if you weren't, you wouldn't care. Hell, you wouldn't even see it as a mistake. You would just shift the blame somehow or convince yourself that you were in the right. And now with that being said, I'm guessing most of you guys listening aren't criminals, assholes, or dictators. You are good men who made a mistake. Even the best, most ethical of us makes mistakes. We forget things. We make decisions in poor judgment. We trust the wrong people. Shit happens. Good men make mistakes all the time. Good men let their lust get the better of them and sheep. Good men feed into fights and arguments and overreact. Good men make poor financial choices. They work too much. They don't give her the time she needs. They let the romance fade away. They get lazy and let her take charge of the relationship. But the difference is the good man always feels like shit for doing it afterwards. And yeah, sometimes he makes the same mistake again, and some things may take a while to learn, but he eventually does. And here's one of the shitty parts about making a mistake in a relationship, and this happens all the fucking time and makes me want to pull my hair out every time I hear about it. Sometimes us guys don't realize we were making the mistake until she's gone. I've gone an entire two years of a relationship, not realizing that I was letting the romance fade. She eventually got bored and left. I dated a chick who broke it off out of nowhere right in the middle of what I thought was a fantastic relationship, and on the way out, she said I wasn't man enough for her. And then you had the mistakes that you were too stubborn to admit were a problem until it was too late. For me, it was an anger issue. Of course, it wasn't until after those relationships where the mistake I was making all that time dawned on me, or rather, power slapped me in the face. After all those, I was a fucking wreck. It was actually a worse feeling than the guilt of cheating on another one of my exes. There was so much fuck. If only I had known, I need to prove to her I'm a changed man now. Maybe she'll take me back, all that shit. So much time was wasted on ruminating on how things could have been different. But of course, it all just didn't matter. She was gone, and I was stuck with my mistake bleeding in my hands. It's so easy to get down on yourself this way, and if you stay in that pit for too long, it'll slowly work its way into your identity. All it takes is the realization that admitting and learning from those mistakes indeed makes you a good man. I just hope that you guys can realize this a lot faster than I did. So, okay, that's all good and dandy. If you can admit to your mistakes, you're a strong man, and if you can't, then you're a coward. Got it. But still, we're holding on to the regret, and she's gone. What do we do now? If this is going through your mind, you should be taking stock of what you can and can't control. You can't control the fact that she's gone. She's her own person, she's gonna make her own decisions. However, you can control what you do with the regret. We're gonna go into methods for that. But honestly, guys, regret is a really tough thing to get rid of. I don't know if there's a solid way to 100% let go of all regret. I mean, maybe for some smaller things, but for relationship mistakes that broke someone's heart or worse, I don't know if there's a way. In fact, if you know of a way to completely let it go where you don't feel bad about it anymore, no longer wish that you had done something different, share your thoughts in the comments. But here's the thing: even though it may be impossible to completely get rid of regret, we still have control over it. Or let's say 99% control. This is what I mean. First and foremost, we can use the pain of regret. You're probably frustrated and mad at yourself. A badass quality is being able to grab anger by the balls and turn it into crazy motivation. So fucking grab a hold of it, breathe deep, find the pain, and channel it into motivation to figure out a solution. And the solution is basically doing whatever the hell you can to put up barriers in your future to prevent that shit from happening again. Research shit, learn alternative strategies, have a backup plan when it comes up. Anything fucking possible to prevent a repeat. Right now, you have a bunch of pent-up energy, and you're probably not going to get rid of that energy until you feel good about future-proofing yourself. So use this time to make a plan. A man with a plan is pretty much unstoppable. And second, feelings of regret will start to fade faster when you have successfully implemented that backup plan or whatever it is. I am a classic example of this. I have anger issues. I mean, I'm light years ahead of what I used to be, but in one relationship, I could not handle myself. I was reacting instead of responding. I had no emotional control, and I was just a piece of shit. Some of my actions alienated a lot of really good people from my life. And guys, the pain of that plus the relationship ending was so unbelievably extreme that I put everything I had into a year-long anger management program. I did every single assignment, I went to every single meeting, I always participated. I helped the other guys in that program along the way. And I was still carrying around ridiculous amounts of pain, regret, and depression. But I stayed in, I forced myself to have faith in myself, and the pain started to fade after each week. Because I knew that no matter what, I never wanted to feel that pain ever again. And no matter what, I was going to fix myself. And today, I still feel that anger flare up, but I have so many different tools, methods, and plan Bs to pick from when I can sense myself starting to get out of control. Every time I can catch myself before I fly off the handle, that regret fades even further. But it's never gonna 100% go away. I'm still trying to forgive myself for some of the things I did. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not. I'm not sure what the next step is, but I do know for damn sure that all that grueling work I did to tear out all the rotten parts of myself was fucking worth it. In fact, I probably wouldn't be alive today if I didn't turn that pain into motivation to get better. So, guys, I know regret all too well. It may never completely go away. All you can do is, well, use the pain as motivation to get better. And if you're still not sure what the ultimate solution is, keep making action steps in that direction, and the answer will present itself to you. Just be consistent. Another thing you can do is if you haven't yet, reach out to her and apologize. If you feel that this is necessary, don't send her a fucking text. Call her. And I guess you can email her if you really want, I guess, but a call shows balls. Leave a voicemail if you have to. Bonus points if you get a hold of her and she's willing to meet up in person. All you gotta do is explain where you went wrong, apologize for it, and then acknowledge that you made her feel XYZ emotions about it, and then you apologize for that too. And whatever she says afterwards, just let her fucking say it. She may say some shit like, wow, I wish you had thought of that before you did that thing, or yeah, nice to see you're apologizing after we broke up, shit like that. Or she may be sweet and understanding and appreciate it. Just let her say it. And unless she wants to talk about it or anything else, get off the phone. If you guys remember from episode six, we have to give her space, regardless if we want her back or not. And I know there are a bunch of you guys listening who would jump at a chance to get her back. But when you make that call, short and sweet, apologize for the mistake and then apologize for the feelings you gave her. Wish her well and get off the phone. Then, once you get off the phone, go listen to episode six. It's called What If She Comes Back? Apologizing if you haven't done it already will take a good chunk of this weight off of your back, even if it's a voicemail. I think this thing with mistakes is that we carry it around until we apologize, and then a lot of the weight just drops off. Moving on, guys, you can regret your decisions. You can be mad at yourself, but please don't beat yourself up over it. I don't care what you did. And yes, there is a line between being pissed at yourself and then changing your life because of it. What I mean by changing your life is basically allowing your regret and self-anger control what you think you deserve to be doing or how you should see yourself. If you're isolating yourself or getting into self-destructive habits as a form of self-punishment, or just not letting yourself feel things that you're meant to feel, like love from someone else, that's what I'm talking about. And I know what that's like. Your friends are out having fun, but you tell yourself, no, I'm not allowed to have fun. I'm gonna sit here and be sad because that's what I deserve. Or maybe you're saying no to some sort of event you've been looking forward to or new episode of your favorite show, whatever it is. You can't be restricting yourself like this. That is literally one of the worst things you can do for yourself right now. If your friends are inviting you out, just go. You didn't make the mistake on them. If you want to watch that show and treat yourself to something nice, fucking do it. Take it from me again. I've been with a girl who, when I broke up with her, told me that I didn't deserve another girlfriend ever again, and that no girl would ever love me ever again. She told me that I didn't deserve my friends. A couple weeks later, I told her that I was contemplating suicide, and she told me, contrary to what you think she may have said to me, she told me that I shouldn't do it. Why? Because according to her, living the rest of my life in pain without her was a better punishment than not living at all. And me being at rock bottom obliged. I allowed her to get into my brain and reprogram me. I stopped answering the phone. I let my small business die. I didn't go out, I didn't have fun. I sat around. I thought, this is what I deserve, this is what she wants, she's right. But during that time at Rock Bottom, I eventually came to the realization that if I was indeed going to live, I was gonna have to turn my whole fucking life around. And I thought, you know what? To hell with what she wants. So I blocked her on everything. Actually, that in and of itself was uplifting. I put one foot in front of the other and forced myself to get my shit back on track. I was in debt, no job, no place to live. I crashed on my best friend's couch for a couple months before I cleaned myself up and landed a sales job at a car dealership. From there, I kept marching forward. And what you're hearing right now is pretty much a direct result of that one decision to man up and battle my demons. Guys, don't ever let anyone tell you that you don't deserve to be loved or appreciated or any kind of bullshit like that. You are the only person that gets to determine your self-worth. If there is anyone in your life trying to tell you that you deserve anything less, cut them out. But most importantly, don't ever let you tell yourself that. Again, I don't care what you did. If you feel guilty, if you're mad at yourself, you are a good man. You are a strong man. A man who is strong enough to admit to himself that he has things to work on. And shit, at the end of the day, that's all this comes down to. Working on yourself. That's the whole point of this podcast. Rebuilding is not only implementing badass strategies to level up, it's becoming a better man by choosing to learn from your mistakes, no matter how bad they were. No one ever becomes a badass without making mistakes, albeit some big mistakes along the way. Bad mistakes are a double-edged sword. On one side of the blade, yes, they sting like a mother. They hurt. You get mad at yourself. On the other side, you level up 10 times when you take corrective action. Let your mistakes be your greatest teacher. Your response to them and the action you implement will take you to new heights you would have never achieved if you didn't make the mistake in the first place. My journey through anger management gave me so much more than control of my emotions. It gave me confidence I never thought I had. Nowadays I can stay ice cold when someone is acting a fool in front of me. A long time ago, I cheated on one of my girlfriends. I then learned to control my lust and keep things platonic with women who are showing signs of attraction. Sure, they get bored and walk away, but who cares? Sometime later, I learned how relationship dynamics actually work and eventually found a woman who was way more sexy and feminine than my ex, who told me I wasn't man enough for her. I also finally learned how to keep things interesting, flirty, and fun in relationships instead of letting things get boring and dull. And what's the result from all of that learning? My wife gets the best version of me. Guys, learning from your past mistakes will reap rewards you can't see yet. You will become a better man from this. Your friends will see, your family will see, and your next girlfriend will most definitely benefit from this new you. And I guarantee she will be in even better love than your ex, as amazing as she might have been. You ain't seen nothing yet. This time in your life is for rebuilding, changing things up if you want, exploring new things, saying yes to more things. But this is also the time for learning. As badasses, we never stop learning. We never stop grinding. We push through hard times even when we can't quite see what the rewards are going to be just yet. It's that faith in God or the universe or whatever you believe in to present you with new opportunities to grow. And yes, challenges to make you stronger as well. Even if that challenge was a mistake that you made. It's that faith in yourself that pushing through this will make you stronger than you think, and way smarter for fuck's sake. So, guys, cut out the self-punishments. Go have fun. Be yourself. Be the version of yourself that you want to be. If you're depressed right now, what is the best version of you? Happy? Excited? Content? Passionate? Reverse engineer it. Go do things that will put you in that state of mind. You may not feel a huge change right away. All you gotta do is keep going. Go make plans if no one is reaching out to you. The worst thing you can do is sit around and wait for things to happen. Mistakes be damned. You deserve the fruits of your labor. You deserve the life you want. You deserve love. Boys, you are worth it. Every single one of you. I don't know you personally, but I do know that you're listening to this podcast because you want to become an even better man than you are right now. And that tells me a lot about you. Some of you are past the relationship enough that you already have some wins under your belt. Some of you are fresh out of a relationship and crushed, possibly with the added weight of your mistakes. No matter what stage you're in, what it tells me is the badasses you are all becoming are what this world needs more of. And of course, I'm still learning from my mistakes and getting closer to bad assery. We're all in this together. No man has ever become strong, tough, and resilient by living a life without challenge and avoiding responsibility. A real man is built. And just like the sword, he is beaten down by life and his own errors, but he uses that to forge himself into the best, most badass blade he can be. So wrapping up here, guys, will you ever become perfect and stop making mistakes altogether? Of course not. And this is the harsh reality, especially because we can't see it. I can't tell you what mistakes you will make or avoid in the future, but I can promise you that if you learn from them by taking action on things you can control, using the pain of regret as motivation and acting with self-love and self-respect, you will emerge better. And always remember, you only feel guilty because you're a good man. We need more of you. And gentlemen, if you can live by these points, you will find it easier to forgive yourself.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

You'll know when it's time. Alright, I'm leaving you badass mother truckers with two quotes to end today's episode. First one If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes, but if you learn from them, you will be a better person. Bruce Lee.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Second one, a man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

John C. Maxwell. See you guys next week.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Thank you for joining me in another badass episode, brother. If you want to accelerate into this new chapter in your life and get a boost into your badass journey, sign up for a free 45-minute consultation for post breakup or divorce coaching. All the info is in the episode description. Also, please remember to like and comment. And if you know anyone who could use this info in their badass journey, please share this episode with them. None of this will be possible without you guys, so thank you again, and I will see you in the next episode.