We all try to do our best, at least most of the time. And when we don’t succeed, often we are our own harshest critics.

But if you never give yourself a break, even doing your best is never going to be good enough.

Don’t get me wrong; demanding excellence of yourself and your performance at work are admirable goals. But we all mess up occasionally, despite the best of intentions. How you respond to failure is what determines whether you can figure out what happened and move on or put yourself in a negative downward spiral.

Six helpful questions from Ruth and Gary Namie's “The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job,” can help you assess how you handle missteps at work.

-- When you make an error or an oversight at work, do you criticize yourself harshly?

-- Before important meetings, job interviews or work assignments, are your thoughts negative -- do you focus on all that might go wrong?

-- When you are running late, do you bombard yourself with harsh criticism, even before anyone else notices you are late?

-- Do you worry you will be found out and others will discover you’re not really able to do what is expected of you?

-- Do you lie awake criticizing yourself for anything that went wrong during the day, even though you didn’t have much control over what happened?

-- Have you ever said or thought to yourself that you are your own worst enemy?

The Namies say that if you answer yes to even one of these questions, then your inner critique is in overdrive.

An article in Psychology Today suggests that low self-esteem is a natural result of overactive self-criticism. That leads to a variety of problems that usually result in failure: you stop taking risks to avoid making mistakes; you don’t express opinions in case you say something stupid or boring; and you compare yourself to others and are never satisfied with your achievements.

Then larger issues surface: You stop asking for help; you think about hurting yourself; you get defensive; and you can’t forgive yourself or others.

If you see any of these characteristics in yourself, you need to take action to reverse the negativity. Don’t waste one more minute demeaning your worth.

Remind yourself that you have plenty of valuable qualities that others depend on. Forgive yourself for mistakes, repeating: “If I knew then what I know now, I would have taken a different approach.”

List your accomplishments and refer to that list when you feel a pity party coming on. Take a break! A change of scenery can do wonders to lift your mood.

Tell your negative inner voice that you aren’t going to listen anymore. Turn self-criticism into self-correction. Repeating a proactive message, such as: “We often learn as much from our failures as our successes,” is a great place to start.

Here's a story to illustrate my point. A teacher challenged his class, “Raise your hand if you would like this $20 bill.” Predictably, all hands went up in the air.

He crumpled the cash into a little ball. “How about now? Who still wants it?” All the hands stayed up.

Next, he dropped the crumpled bill into a cup of coffee. “Any takers?” Not a hand went down.

The teacher fished the $20 bill out of the cup, dried it off, then dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. “Does anyone want this dirty old thing?”

The students waved their hands wildly.

“But why?” the teacher asked.

“Because it’s $20!” one student shouted out.

“That’s correct,” the teacher replied. “This bill retains its value even though it’s been put through all sorts of situations. That’s what I want each of you to remember.

“The circumstances you find yourselves in, the obstacles you overcome and the failures you endure cannot diminish your value. Always remember how special you are, and hold your head high so others will also recognize your value.”

Mackay’s Moral: Life is full of ups and downs. The trick is to keep getting up when you are down.

A son is reading a newspaper while sitting on a bench with his aging father, who is taking in a beautiful sunny day. Suddenly, the father hears a bird chirping and asks his son, “What is that?”

The son puts down his paper, clearly annoyed, and answers, “A sparrow.” This goes on a couple more times, with the son getting more irritated, and finally yelling at his father that he’s already told him the answer several times.

The father abruptly gets up and walks into the house, and the son feels remorse at what he’s done. The father then comes out with his diary from many years ago, sits next to his son and asks him to read it out loud. “Today my youngest son who just turned 3 was sitting with me in the park when a sparrow sat in front of us. My son asked me 21 times what it was, and I answered all 21 times ... a sparrow. I hugged him every single time he asked the same question, without getting mad, feeling affection for my little boy.”

The son then puts the diary down and hugs and kisses his father.

Talk about a generation gap!

I love to study how the various generations view the world -- and, equally important, how the world views them. Now, a new group is coming of work age -- Generation Z. Gen Zers, also referred to as the iGeneration, were born between 1995 and 2010, which means that the oldest are now entering the workforce.

We’ve heard a lot about millennials or Generation Y, people born in the early 1980s up until the mid-1990s. Millennials are not children anymore: The oldest of them are now in their mid- to late 30s. Millennials are increasingly taking leadership roles within organizations. In addition to managing their peers, millennials will soon be managing Gen Z employees.

According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, America’s youngest generation is nearly 70 million strong. This group will soon outnumber their millennial predecessors. Will millennial managers complain about Gen Zers as much as baby boomer managers complained about millennials? Only time will tell.

I like most of what I’ve read about and experienced with many Gen Zers. Full disclosure: Most of my 11 grandchildren are part of that generation.

First off, they are more connected. They grew up with the internet and have been plugged in since day one. They spend more time on their smartphones than any other generation, using them for education and entertainment. They are more likely to browse the internet than go to a movie. They process information faster than any other generation.

But they also like to communicate face-to-face -- a more personal approach. They have both physical and online friends, and many are connected around the world.

Because Gen Zers live in a high-tech world with constant updates, their attention span is shorter than millennials or other generations.

Gen Zers value ethics. They like companies that take a stand. They are well educated about brands and make sure a company’s actions match its ideals.

They like to be individualistic, are more do-it-yourself and prefer their own work spaces versus working together in a group. They are used to having things personalized, from news reports to music playlists. They’ll pay more for products that highlight their individuality.

Members of Generation Z are more diverse than any other generation. They are good at multitasking. They are used to blending work and play, up to seven days a week. If they can log in and log out, they can work from anywhere, which is why the physical office is changing.

According to Wikipedia, Generation Z members self-identify as being loyal, compassionate, thoughtful, open-minded, responsible and determined. They view their millennial peers as competitive, spontaneous and adventurous -- all characteristics that they do not see readily in themselves.

Perhaps the characteristics I like most about Gen Zers is that they are resourceful and entrepreneurial. High percentages want to start their own business. A Gallup study found that about eight in 10 students in grades 5 through 12 want to be their own boss rather than work for someone else. They are willing to try something and fail.

Maybe Generation Z will help other generations step out of their box and see the world in a whole new way.

Mackay’s Moral: While you’re busy teaching the next generation how to do things, don’t be surprised if you learn a thing or two.

While visiting with a friend over coffee one morning, a young woman complained, “Every time my husband and I get into an argument, he gets historical!”

The friend interrupted, “Don’t you mean hysterical?”

“No, I mean historical,” the young woman replied. “He always brings up the past.”

Her husband could benefit from the words of motivational speaker and author Wayne Dyer: “Hold no grudges and practice forgiveness. This is the key to having peace in all your relationships.”

We are living in a time when being offended is in fashion. It’s just too hard to let things go. We seem to have forgotten about forgiveness. Forgiveness requires people not to keep score -- a human tendency when we feel we have been wronged.

Sadly, this tendency affects our professional as well as our personal lives. If we have a problem with someone else being smarter, richer or more successful than we are, working together becomes much more difficult. That doesn’t enhance cooperation in any arena.

Are you a grudge-holder? Do you go around making lists of everything that is unfair in the world? This age-old practice is linked to our evolutionary history, according to an article by Nando Pelusi in Psychology Today magazine. Pelusi writes that it’s particularly difficult to let go of grudges because there are high emotional payoffs involved. This, he writes, is a sensible motive, because our ancestors had a huge investment in making sure they got their fair share in the ancient world -- a place where unfairness could result in the death of you and all the people in your group. This gives humans a reason to be hypervigilant when it comes to uncovering cheaters or swindlers.

Injustice collecting, however, entails more than resentment toward those who are benefiting unjustly. It is, as Pelusi points out, resentment building on a mass scale. We become outraged when the world isn’t absolutely fair, and this can lead to unending anger, hopelessness and depression. It is also a way to avoid responsibility for our personal circumstances. But how do we change something that seems to be so hardwired into our systems? Pelusi makes these suggestions for giving up a grudge and moving on:

-- Make a list of injustices. Write down the things that weigh on your mind. This will get your mind to focus in a productive way.

-- Stop thinking in all-or-nothing terms. Ask yourself whether the injustice you are experiencing has to affect all aspects of your life. Try to see how the injustice might help you find a new direction or live in a different and better way.

-- Ask yourself if your life can still be meaningful despite the injustice. If not, Pelusi says you have to realize you are making a choice to refuse to get over something.

-- Will being upset change your situation? Ask yourself this question if you seem stuck in a quagmire of your own anger.

-- Frame your situation accurately. Is something really unfair -- or just irritating? Keeping perspective is key if you want to move on.

-- Realize that you are going to come across unfair situations. Make a decision about how you will handle these circumstances in the future.

-- Question how much a particular example of unfairness will affect you in the grand scheme of things. Try not to fall victim to the temptation of wallowing in grief over something that just doesn’t matter that much.

Here's another story to explain what I'm talking about. While a Zen master was away one day, a cleaning lady came to tidy up his house. As she was dusting, she accidentally knocked over his favorite vase, and it smashed into a million pieces. The cleaning lady was horrified and didn’t know what to do.

She contemplated leaving without telling the master what had happened, but decided to stay and confess that she had broken his vase. When the master returned, she showed him what she had done and begged his forgiveness.

The master said, “Do not worry, dear lady, I bought that vase for pleasure, not pain.”

I like the advice in this Arabic proverb: “Write the wrongs that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. Let go of all emotions such as resentment and retaliation, which diminish you, and hold on to the emotions, such as gratitude and joy, which increase you.”

Mackay’s Moral: Forgive. Forget. Then get on with it.