Failure=Success
The formula for success is failure.
Last week I had a bloody big fail.
Something great came from it, I created some awareness. I realised I had been avoiding failure for quite some time.
I had been telling myself a big lie.
The big lie was “I don’t fail”
Except I was failing, everyday. I was just failing ahead of time, because I wasn’t doing anything to move towards my goal.
I had been playing small and doing things that I’ve always done.
This is how we end up feeling stuck, doing the things we’ve always done keeps us in the same place.
So I decided to take a risk so I could move closer to my goal, and I failed. I could have given up and decided that it wasn’t meant to be and that I’m a terrible business person (Disclaimer : I did think this for a wee while) but instead I evaluated what happened and used this as information, so I could learn from it, and try again.
What if I told you that, if you’re failing, you’re doing it RIGHT?
When we do something for the first time, we (usually) know what we would like the outcome to be, but often it doesn’t always work out as planned. This is because we are doing something new, we’ve never done it before, so we don’t always know the exact steps right away.
The next bit is the important bit.
When you don’t get the result you hoped for, do you:
Give up OR Review what worked and what didn’t work, then use this information to figure out the next steps to move you closer to the result you wanted?
Failure helps us to figure out what works and what doesn’t, failure shows us the next step, until we reach our goal or desired result.
Failure is just information, it means nothing about us.
How would you like to fail?
When we don’t take action towards achieving a goal or result this is unproductive failure.
Where as, if you are going out and taking aligned action, taking risks and you don't get the result that you want, this is productive failure, because even though you didn’t get the result you hoped for it is still moving you forward.
Failure is always working for us, if you're avoiding failure your avoiding success…. And thats what I realised i had been doing.
So if you're not falling - quite often your not progressing, when you are failing you are in the growth zone.
What are you avoiding?
The only reason we ever do or do not do something is because how we think we think we will feel on the other side of it.
In this instance I had not been putting myself in front of failure because if I’m quite honest I didn't want to feel rejection, but what is wrong with feeling rejection?
Sure, rejection can feel terrible for a bit, but when we actually let ourselves feel rejection/ disappointment, shame and we let it be there, we feel it and Process it, you will realise you are still alive and didn’t actually die, then we can get back up and try again once we have processed the emotion.
Failure is inevitable if you are going after a wild goals and a big life, it doesn't matter if the first thing doesn't work out, be willing to fail, be willing to make multiple attempts, be willing to feel the emotions that feel like crap…. that is what will lead you to success.