How Do You Handle Failure?

You’ve got to surround yourself with good people because no matter who you are, it can be very hard to see your own stuff. That’s why a good coach will have a good coach. I’m fortunate to have some wonderfully insightful people in my life and one of them is my beautiful little sister.

I recently found myself in a seriously funky mood and had no idea why. I vented to my sister who turned to me and simply said “it sounds like you’re upset because certain things are not living up to your expectations.”

Lightbulb moment! She was right. I had set extremely high expectations for a call I did, but after the call I felt like I had done a terrible job.  (In hindsight, it was all illusion there was nothing wrong with the call!)

This sent me into a downward spiral fuelled by some negative self-talk. As soon as my sister told me what she could see it was very clear – I was beating myself up for failing.

Great – now knew what I was dealing with, but how absurd?

How was I really going to achieve what I wanted to without making any mistakes? I had visions of me tip-toeing carefully towards my goals, scared of doing something wrong and spontaneously combusting or something!

What about the learning process involved with doing new things? Making mistakes are an unavoidable part of that.

I made a decision there and then instead of trying to avoid failing, I was going to change my attitude to it and let myself fail because it meant I was stretching myself.

That shift was confirmed by the following wise words walking into my head

“Your ability to succeed is determined by your attitude to failing.”

Your path is going to be littered with mistakes and failures. How else are you going to know what works for you without some trial and error?

Failing is natural. Stopping yourself from failing is also stopping yourself from succeeding AND it stunts your growth. Letting yourself fail is a big step forward in the direction of your goals.

Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Failure is final, failing is movement and stopping yourself from failing is stagnation – do you want to be stagnant?

Take the negative charge out of failing and spend that energy on manifesting your dreams instead of beating yourself up. The only way not to fail is to not try and that’s not an option for me, is it for you?

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