Blaming other people or minimizing your responsibility isn’t helpful to anyone.

Before you can learn from your mistakes, you have to accept full responsibility for your role in the outcome. That can be uncomfortable sometimes, but until you can say, “I messed up,” you aren’t ready...

While you don’t want to dwell on your mistakes, reflecting on them can be productive. Ask yourself a few tough questions:

• What went wrong?

• What could I do better next time?

• What did I learn from this?

Seeing your answers on paper can help ...

It’s important to spend your time thinking about how to do better in the future, not beating yourself up for messing up.

Make a plan that will help you avoid making a similar mistake. Be as detailed as possible but remain flexible since your plan may need to change.

Don’t depend on willpower alone to prevent you from taking an unhealthy shortcut or from giving into immediate gratification. Increase your chances of success by making it harder to mess up again.

Creating a list of all the reasons why you should stay on track could help you stay self-disciplined, even during the toughest times.

Self-discipline is like a muscle. Each time you delay gratification and make a healthy choice, you grow mentally stronger.