Why it’s easy to cancel yourself

Cancel culture seems to be one of the buzz terms of 2024. Wherever we look, people in the public eye are being cancelled for a myriad of different reasons, and whilst it’s important that we call out toxic behaviour when we see it, it’s also important that we don’t allow cancel culture to cancel self-growth.

You see, we will all make mistakes in our lifetimes and some of them will be bigger than others, I mean real humdingers! I can guarantee that there isn’t a person reading this who hasn’t made their fair share of them on their path into adulthood and beyond. They are a fundamental part of learning. We cannot grow if we aren’t prepared to step outside of our comfort zones and embrace the failure that is an inevitable part of the process.

We have to be able to own our misgivings and our mistakes in order to open ourselves up to the possibility of truly learning from them in order to change our behaviours and actions in a positive way. If we blindly follow cancel culture to its conclusion, then it ends with us feeling ashamed of every mishap and cancelling ourselves without an opportunity for self-reflection or increased self-awareness going forward.

Not every failure in life deserves a mentality of cancellation, particularly of ourselves. Because in the moment we do that, we subconsciously tell ourselves that we aren’t worthy of redemption, of grace or of growth. Unpacking our mistakes with a kind touch, some self-love and a commitment to owning and growing from the incident is as much about taking responsibility as it is about reclaiming our journey of self-development.

Every single one of us is a work in progress, and to add to that we will also never be a finished product. Our lives are endless moments of learning, re-learning, challenging what we once believed and replacing it with new information and new ideas. If we allow cancel culture to take hold in our psyche, we diminish our potential.

It seems that the choice to cancel in our culture is based on whether an individual is teachable or not, but this key piece of information seems to have been lost in the social media stampede. Rather than focusing on the initial behaviour let’s focus on the response, and let’s also turn this inwards when we are on the verge of pressing the cancel button on ourselves.

Prioritising being teachable means that we accept failure and the mistakes we will likely make on our journey of growth, but most importantly, we don’t allow our egos to run the show after they’ve happened. We own our faults, we unpack our role, and we open ourselves up to be taught by others, to be presented with new information and, to change our minds.

You are allowed to change your mind when you’re presented with new information, you are allowed to make mistakes and grow from them in a positive way, you are allowed to be human.

Don’t let cancel culture cancel your potential.