This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfizer,

editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine.

And I'm money expert Nicole Lappin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help

callers solve their work problems. And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

And it starts now.

You want to be great all the time, but you are not, sorry. Some days you just aren't as smart, funny or

exceptional as you'd like. Your ideas seem mediocre, your efforts were a little me, you know it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal, but you beat yourself up over it anyway.

A few weeks ago I had one of those days, I wrote about it in my newsletter and so many people sent me these wonderful responses sharing their own struggles with imperfection.

I love that admission that came from an amateur DJ. They wrote me, quote,

whenever I fail to make the perfect set or the perfect transition, I have trouble sleeping that night or I beat myself up for hours,

even though everyone in the audience enjoyed the party without

noticing my mistake." End quote. Yeah, I've been there. We all have. It's frustrating. We didn't fail, per se. There was no disaster. We just didn't live up to our high standards and now we can't let it go.

Today's podcast is for people like that. I have two mental tricks to help you move on. I call them

downward thinking and the grading curve. They've helped me bounce back from my

imperfect moments and I think they can help you too.

So let's go through them.

Tactic number one, downward thinking. Let's say that you're that DJ, I mentioned a minute ago.

You fail to do things perfectly.

Then you go home and obsess over it,

imagining all the better decisions you could have made.

You are doing something called counterfactual thinking.

In other words, you're creating alternate realities in your head

...