Are you afraid to fail?

Glorious morning!

I want to expand on a quote today about failure.You know that ugly little word that feels horrible. Well, Carla A. Harris has a different view on failure. Here is her quote.

“ Failure always brings you a gift, and that gift is experience “ 

Before we delve in, here is a little bit about carla. She was born in 1962. She graduated from Harvard business school with an A.B. degree in economics and received her M.A. degree in business administration. She was once awarded by fortune magazine as one of the top 50 most powerful black executives in corporate america. I am thinking she turned her failures into experience that helped her succeed in business.

What this quote says to me is, don’t look at failure as something horrible. I think we all automatically feel like we lose at something when we fail or we fall short of being capable. I don't see it that way anymore. I see it like Carla does. The very things we didn't do in order to succeed at something needs to be identified to be corrected right? When we know exactly what we did or didn't do that landed us in an endeavor that failed, we can laser focus on that mistake and correct it. We can only gain experience by trying something new. If we are afraid to try something new for fear of failure, now we have ourselves in a pickle. When we can view failures as experience boosters that make us smarter, more capable and eventually more successful, we win. We first need to step out and try. If experience is the teacher, then failure is the subject we need to master. I’m sure everyone reading this has felt the sting of failure.

I myself have. I failed at cultivating a healthy marriage. Was it all my doing? , of course not but I kept trying and trying to make the relationship work without considering myself as part of the reason it was failing. I kept my focus on his failures. I didn't realize at the time that had I focused on my own shortcomings, I would have corrected my insecurities and worked on myself more. I would have gotten myself to a place where I was confident enough in my own abilities and not relying on my partner to carry me in areas where I was not so strong. Ideally we should learn to stand on our own first , emotionally ( heal the baggage ) and stand on our own financially. We are all born with the ability to do those things. When we are afraid to fail, we give up in a sense. We give up our responsibility to be whole and complete. We also get into codependent relationships and settle, for fear of failing. Learning how to be ok with failing is a practice that will help us grow tremendously. Courage is born from failures if we don't curse ourselves for failing and instead, pick ourselves up,, look in the mirror and say “ good try, lets try again" this time with different action steps learned from the failure. I think a lot of people, allow themselves to swim around in the failure and beat themselves up. That only adds to failing again. Everyone fails. Everyone. But not everyone is willing to be okay with failing. That puts unrealistic expectations on ourselves. It also reinforces self loathing tendencies. When we refuse to look at failures as stepping stones for life experience, we are left with a defeated feeling, we are left with low motivation to try again. I call this earth the school of hard knocks and miracles, because it has both to experience. When we only embrace the "feel good “ experiences, we miss out on a lot of vital learning that makes us wiser, more capable, and we miss out on building courage.

Do you view your failures as bad? Do you struggle with moving forward with your dreams because of the fear of failure? I can help you clear the path and be ok with failure and use it to your advantage. Make a free discovery call today. Peace be with you, Dawn

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