Happy Monday, friends! I hope you are all doing great and enjoyed your first day back to work for the week! Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful dads, grandfathers, and father figures out there, especially to my dad who has been such a huge positive influence in my life! I truly wouldn’t be where I am without him.
This week I want to share a little bit with you about fearing failure. I really want to discuss why you shouldn’t fear failure. I know just the word failure can strike fear into people, but I hope by the end of this post you can take a new approach towards adversity.
Much of what I’m going to discuss with you can be found in many self-help books or psychology research. For this specific post, I got my information from the wonderful podcast called Increase Your Impact by Justin Su’a. I HIGHLY suggest listening to it daily! Justin does an amazing job giving great tips and tricks for anyone’s daily life. I compiled information from several of his podcasts to create this post.
As we go through life we typically sets goals for ourselves. We try to grow and get better at what we do. We are always happy while things are going well; we find ourselves on cloud nine thinking things can’t go wrong. But with growth comes failure. It’s only a matter of time before we end up facing adversity and it may feel like we just got punched in the face. We tend to forget that we can, and most likely will, fail at some point. We don’t expect to hit snags, and then we don’t know how to react. This usually ends with us being derailed, giving up on the goal, and fearing failure so we never go for it again.
What we need to understand to begin the process of not fearing failure, is that adversity is normal. It’s ok to get heated, jealous, fail, etc. Everyone experiences these feelings and moments, especially people like our favorite athletes or business men and women. The difference between us and them is that they already have this skill perfected. Accepting this adversity as normal is the first step. When we have high goals we must expect to fail. Don’t minimize the adversity. If we view it as normal we can use it to our advantage.
How do we use failure to our advantage? That seems crazy, I know. That’s why it’s not normal and why it’s hard to accept it, but we have to push through it. If we want to be the best version of ourselves we have to reach beyond our ability. We have to use failure as tools for building skills we don’t yet have. Use mistakes as little, new pieces of information to build connections in our brain. If we failed, it means something didn’t work, so we just have to take a new step in a different direction. As we problem solve from our failure, the more we rewire our brains. This is called having a growth mindset. Don’t get down on yourself when you fail, grow from the lesson you learned.
All of this skill can be wrapped up into one word: ATTITUDE. Don’t let negativity blind you into thinking you can’t overcome adversity. Your reaction to your situation will determine the outcome. Be positive about your situation. Know the sun will come out tomorrow (cliche, I know), and you will come out on the other side a better version of yourself than you started.
I truly hope this can help you all! I know I have failed so many times or seen myself stop improving at what I’m doing. But every time I face my failure with a positive attitude and growth mindset I find myself better in the end. Like everything, this is going to take practice. Don’t give up, keep pushing forward. And if you ever need a little extra cheering on or just need to talk with someone please don’t hesitate to email me! I hope you all have an excellent rest of your week!
AT CHOICE 