Make More Mistakes

Overview of structure & description of content

1. Present: Identifying rejection, i.e. when you’re making it personal
2. Past: Recognising patterns in your past that lead to rejection
3. Future: Changing

I like how this book is not all about women. The examples aren’t 50-50, but it’s not a woman-only issue and I’m glad Elayne doesn’t present it as such.

The main thing to take away from this book is it’s all about communication.

Learning from my mistakes

1. Pay attention to your own needs
2. State them
3. Ask others about their needs

This is actually really hard to do, because when we’re hurt we tend to just feel overwhelmed by the pain and we don’t rationalise to discover what it is we actually need. If we do happen to know what we need, we expect other people to guess. Then we might ignore their needs either because we don’t recognise or hear them, or because we feel our needs are more important and should take priority. Each of these actions contributes to the vicious cycle of rejection.

I’m speaking from personal experience.

Recently a friend of mine cancelled an important arrangement we had. I kept repeating my new mantra to myself (don’t take it personally, don’t take it personally, don’t take it personally), but I was absolutely devastated.

I do not feel able to tell him what my needs are, for fear of overwhelming him when he has such great needs of his own. This has made things quite strained for us. However, I’m hoping that in time we will be able to share our needs with each other and respond to them. In the meantime, I’m taking care to make sure he knows he can tell me what he needs when he’s ready.

Since then, another friend and I have managed to end our cycle of arguments, by stating our needs clearly (finally!) It’s tough, but I’m going to lend him the book, so that should really help us both to remember the messages.

I do feel like this book would be great if it were shorter. I would love to have a pamphlet or poster version to stick on my wall. Maybe a challenge for the creative ones amongst you?!

Get this book absolutely free

You have until the end of the year to convince me that you should have this book free, so convince me: Leave a message in the comments to this post; I’ll select the most deserving and send you a free copy of this book!

UK postage & packaging free, international rates will depend on the country.

Alternatively, you could buy it from Amazon