Be nice to yourself, mmmkay? When facing failure, it’s easy to be overly critical of ourselves. However, practicing self-compassion is essential for maintaining motivation. If we ever want to get back on the horse, we have to start being nicer to ourselves. As you know, failures and setbacks are a necessary part of life and are essential to building confidence and resilience. So instead of berating yourself for mistakes or setbacks, acknowledge your feelings with kindness and understanding. Recognize that everyone around you has experienced failure at some point, and it doesn’t define your worth or capabilities. Treat yourself with the same compassion you would offer a friend facing a similar situation.

Check out the facts. In moments of self-doubt, it can be helpful to reflect on past successes. Remind yourself of challenges you’ve overcome and goals you’ve achieved in the past. Your negativity bias is going to overlook all of that data in the face of failure but we can’t let that be the whole story! Reflecting on these accomplishments can reignite your confidence and remind you of your resilience. Use these past successes as evidence of your ability to overcome obstacles and persevere in the face of adversity.

Let in support. Don’t hesitate to reach out to friends, family, or mentors for support during challenging times. Talking to someone you trust can provide a fresh perspective, valuable advice, or simply a listening ear. They might even share some of their own past failures with you to help you maintain perspective. Surround yourself with positive and supportive individuals (pick me!) who believe in your abilities and encourage you to keep going. Seeking support is a sign of strength, not weakness and allowing that kind of authenticity into your relationships will only make them stronger.

See every setback as simply a break. Instead of viewing failure as a final outcome, reframe it as a learning opportunity where you can take stock and chart a more informed course forward. Every setback invariably contains valuable lessons that can help you better tackle the path ahead. An honest post-mortem will allow you to reflect on what went wrong and identify areas for improvement. Use this newfound knowledge to adjust your approach and try again with renewed determination. Embracing failure as a natural part of the learning process can shift your perspective and motivate you to keep pushing forward. It’s not the end, it’s just a pause where you can take stock before started again, better informed.

Be present! When feeling overwhelmed by past failures or anxious about future outcomes, focus on the present moment. Practice mindfulness techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga to center yourself and quiet your mind. By bringing your attention to the here and now, you can cultivate a sense of calm and clarity. Being present will stop the catastrophizing and help you connect to the here and now through a different lens. This can help you break free from negative thought patterns and regain the motivation to take action in the present moment.

Remember your why. Understanding your underlying motivations is key to sustaining long-term action. Whatever your “failure” or misstep relates to, ask yourself why it’s important to you. What do you hope to achieve? How will achieving these goals improve your life or the lives of others? Connecting deeply with your underlying values and aspirations can fuel your drive and keep you focused during challenging times and setbacks.

Practice gratitude. Your mindset plays a crucial role in shaping your motivation levels. Cultivate a positive and optimistic outlook by focusing on what you can control rather than dwelling on setbacks or obstacles. Practice gratitude for the progress you’ve made and maintain a belief in your ability to overcome challenges. Surround yourself with positive influences, whether it’s supportive friends, inspirational books, or motivational quotes.

Keep going, incrementally. Large, intimidating goals can often lead to feelings of overwhelm that result in procrastination. Break down your goals into smaller, more manageable steps, and focus on taking consistent action each day. Celebrate your progress along the way, no matter how small, and use each small victory as momentum to propel you forward. By focusing on incremental progress, you’ll build confidence and momentum over time.

Focus on the future. Visualization is a powerful technique used by athletes, performers, and successful individuals across various fields. Take time each day to visualize yourself achieving your goals with vivid detail. Imagine how it feels, what it looks like, and the steps you took to get there. Visualizing success primes your mind for achievement and reinforces your motivation and commitment to your goals.

Feeling like a failure and frustrated is a common experience that everyone faces at some point in life. However, it’s important to remember that setbacks are not permanent roadblocks but rather opportunities for growth and learning. By practicing self-compassion, reflecting on past successes, breaking tasks into manageable steps, seeking support from others, embracing failure as a learning opportunity, and focusing on the present moment, you can reignite your motivation and continue moving forward on your journey toward success. Remember, it’s not about avoiding failure altogether but rather how you respond to it that ultimately determines your success. Need some support to regroup and chart a path forward? I got you. Let’s chat and see how we can get you re-motivated to begin again!

Find more on this topic in our latest newsletter available here or sign up to get future newsletters right to your in-box.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

It’s not working.

I can’t stop the negative thinking.

This just the way that I am.

This isn’t worth the effort.

When those old negative patterns come back around and take the wind out of our new, intentional thinking, it can be incredibly frustrating. It starts to feel like it is never going to work; we’re never going to “fix” our brains.

Consider what it would be like to commit to writing with your non-dominant hand. There would be time when you would forget about the experiment — you might reach for your pen with your dominant hand, you might even write a few words before realizing your mistake. It would be frustrating. There would be times when it would feel like a fool’s errand and a waste of your energy.

Why not just forget it and go back to the way things were?

When we experience set backs on the path toward our goals, it can be demoralizing. It can feel like it’s never going to work. But, in our example, most of us wouldn’t be surprised when you automatically grabbed your pen with your dominant hand or when you simply forgot you were making efforts to change the practice. We wouldn’t be shocked when our automatic, unconscious impulses kicked in, of course they did!

This is the same thing that happens with our brains and goal-ing. Those old negative thoughts will come back. They will try to rain on your parade. They will creep in when you’re tired and out of gas at the end of a long day.

But what if those “slips” were part of the deal? What if those “mistakes” were there to teach you something?

Transitioning to new, more high vibrational thoughts will include some slippage and likely will never completely eradicate old patterns; however, the back and forth dance is an opportunity to embrace our own imperfections and challenge the concept of perfectionism. It’s an opportunity to recognize that change is never going to come easily and that it will require not only commitment but compassion for yourself and your imperfections. Practicing new beliefs and experiencing those challenges often forces my clients to come face to face with their own perfectionist tendencies. It forces them to accept their slips, have compassion, and keep going. It forces them to see that perfectionism is just a pretty excuse for treating themselves terribly and setting unrealistic expectations.

What if we could translate that practice to all aspects of our lives?

What if we were willing to embark on any task, knowing and even anticipating, that we were going to mess up along the way but committing to do it anyway?

Simple thought work often reveals a microcosm of my client’s relationships with themselves. It sheds light on all our self-deprecating tendencies and requires us to face them head on in order to make progress. Those small steps develop a skill that will last a lifetime and will allow you to do away with perfectionism and embrace your dreams.

Our minds can be adapted and renewed. Developments in neuroscience tell us that the brain is capable of establishing new neural pathways, healing and building new brain cells. To do this, the brain simply requires direction and repetition — it requires a commitment to change and push through the discomfort and the setbacks that will inevitably come.

Are you in?

Photo by Lisa from Pexels

Many of the things we do (or don’t do) in our lives are because we are chasing (or avoiding) a feeling.

We get married because we want to be happy. We don’t volunteer to speak up because we don’t want to feel embarrassed. We don’t ask for more money because we don’t want feel ashamed if they say no.

We spend a significant amount of energy in our lives calculating how certain events may or may not make us feel and we then choose to act based upon those estimates. It seems logically self-protecting. Why would we set ourselves up for a failure or embarrassment? Why would we take any action that would make us feel terrible?

This recently came up when I had a client tell me how she blew an important deadline. She was overloaded and low on sleep and it just slipped her mind. Despite the fact that is wasn’t a career-ending mistake and was completely salvageable, my client felt terrible. She was overcome with disappointment in herself — I should have been more organized, this shouldn’t have happened, I let everyone down. She explained to me that, in the days that followed, she just kept trying to shift her thoughts to a “better” thought. To one that didn’t make her feel so terrible, but it just wouldn’t stick.

The problem was that my client was resisting her feelings of disappointment. She was trying to cover them up by manufacturing prettier thoughts. She was running away from that experience and, not surprisingly, it wasn’t working.

Why? Because she was disappointed. She didn’t want to feel good about her oversight. The truth was that she WANTED to feel disappointed (but she didn’t really want to FEEL disappointed). She didn’t want to feel good about it but she didn’t really want to experience the disappointment either.

Whenever we have an experience that we don’t want to feel good about, we cannot give in to the temptation to try and cover it up. We must allow the feeling of disappointment to be there. To run its course. We can’t try and cover up the 50% of our life experiences that aren’t sunshine and roses.

There will be hard days and we cannot simply write off half of our lives.

Half of the time it’s going to be hard and painful. We have to practice accepting that. We also have to practice processing emotions.

When we resist negative emotions and try to bury them with better feelings, the negative feelings simmer below the surface and compound. They will eventually make their way to the surface. It might not be today but it will likely be at some inappropriate time–when you are stuck in traffic on the way to meet a friend for happy hour and you burst into tears….when your spouse asks you what time you will be home for dinner and you bite his face off.

Those feelings will find a way to get out and whomever is on the receiving end likely doesn’t deserve it.

Aside from the fact that resisting those emotions is futile, there is a practical reason for allowing yourself to feel the disappointment. If we don’t accept that negative 50% of our emotional experience, we never get good and experiencing those emotions and moving on. Instead, we create patterns where we resist and avoid those emotions so we start to believe that we can’t handle them.

When we spend our whole lives avoiding those negative vibes, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn how to experience them. To learn that they won’t kill us. To learn that we can experience those emotions and keep moving. Think of it as emotional aversion therapy — we have a hang out with those emotions so we are no longer afraid of them.

When we create a pattern where we fear those emotions, we spend our lives trying to avoid them. It makes perfect sense that we would avoid those emotions that aren’t familiar and that we don’t understand. Of course, they would seem scary! But what if you could explore and come to intimately understand those emotions? What if those emotions were no longer so scary?

Consider what you would do with your life if you weren’t afraid to feel embarrassed? What would be different? What would you accomplish?

As I mentioned at the outset, we spend our entire lives taking actions or not taking actions because we are chasing or avoiding certain feelings. Those feelings are just vibrations in your body. They won’t hurt you. They are created by your thoughts and you have complete agency over those thoughts. But rather than using your brain to try and erase negative emotions, what if we allowed ourselves to experience negative emotions when it is warranted? What if we became practiced and comfortable with those emotions we typically avoid? Then our lives become a series of actions we take simply because we want to; because we know that whatever the outcome, whatever the feeling or negative result, it doesn’t matter because we have no reason to avoid it.

Allow yourself to experience the 50/50 that is our lives. What other choice do you have?!

As attorneys, I know that some days, weeks, and months can feel more like 80% negative and 20% positive. If you need help working through the yin and yang of your life, set up some time to get some free coaching. What do you have to lose?

Photo by Alex on Unsplash

We all want to be more confident and when we think about our ideal selves, that woman lives in a bubble of quiet confidence. She is never afraid to speak her mind and she trusts her ability to do anything. So, if our work together is to help you move one step closer to that ideal version of yourself, the next question invariably is:

How do I get there?

How do we build self-confidence?

We have to practice failing.

Stay with me here….as attorneys and women who excel at examining options and weighing risks, many of us struggle with action. We thrive when we are planning and analyzing. We excel at PREPARING to act. The problem is that we don’t have any clear metric as to when our preparations are complete and it’s time to act.

How will you know when you have fully vetted all the alternatives? How will you know when it’s time to act?

The truth is we don’t. We never do. And that is why it’s so easy to remain stuck–stuck planning to act but never actually doing anything.

All action must acquiesce to the truth that there is no such thing as being fully prepared.

There is no way to ensure success. We must simply act. Only through acting will we ever know if our preparations were in vain. Only through acting will we see whether we overlooked anything. But many of us get stuck in the faulty belief that we aren’t “ready yet.” We tell ourselves we have more work to do, more data elements to analyze. So we just keep preparing. And. We. Never. Move. Forward.

My rationale for drawing out that point is simple:

If we want to build self-confidence we have to start acting and stop preparing.

We have to start acting even when we might not be 110% ready. Why? Because only through acting do we force ourselves to experience the pressures that create self-confidence. When we are stuck in inaction, we never get the chance to really see how we perform under fire. We are so busy believing that we must do it “right” that we don’t allow ourselves the chance to simply TRY.

Passive action robs us of the opportunity to develop confidence through action.

When we act and fail, we might experience embarrassment, shame, or guilt. But when we commit to continued action despite those failures and the crappy feelings, that is where we build self-confidence. Self-confidence doesn’t mean we never fail. Self-confidence means that we know we can fail and get back up and keep going.

Self-confidence means that we trust that we can experience any emotion and keep moving.

We trust in our ability to handle whatever fallout may come our way. Self-confidence acknowledges that we have a goal and we are going to start taking action to get there, no matter how many times we have to face-plant on the way. Self-confidence means that we aren’t going to sit and wait and plot and plan until we can do it perfectly–because we trust in our ability to have compassion for ourselves and keep moving even when it doesn’t go perfectly.

When we know that failure simply means one of our theories didn’t pan out we can keep moving. It doesn’t mean we did anything wrong. That is self-confidence. We trust ourselves, despite the failure.

You aren’t going to grow self-confidence in your analytical lab.

You aren’t going to create self-confidence strategizing and planning. You will only create self-confidence when you put a time limit on the passive action and get out and start taking massive action. Stop with the planning and start practicing at failure. Once you master that, you will have all the self-confidence you could ever imagine.

Self-confidence is one of the most highly sought after skills my clients want. I have so many ways I support my clients to get out there and get moving. The transformation I see in them is why I do this work. If self-confidence is something you want, let’s get you some free coaching and see what we can do together.

Cheers!

Photo by Jordan Benton from Pexels

The truth underneath that notion is that when we allow ourselves to delay action until it can be done perfectly, we are really just trying to protect ourselves from failure.

But what I often see happening is that perfectionism morphs into complete inaction; permission to remain in place. I’m not ready to move forward yet so I’m just going to stay where I am.

It is not logical to believe that we can plan everything to such an extent that we can eliminate all risk of failure.

You are going to have to risk failure if you are ever going to act.

Those that work with me regularly know that I believe perfectionism is for scared people and I’m not the only one who objects to perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionism is a just a prettier word for self-protection.

While I agree that we must all act in a manner that protects ourselves in the highest sense, that self-protective impulse is not relevant when it comes to commonplace activities — applying for a new job, reaching out for support, finishing a large project, sending an email. So many of us apply that self-preservation impulse to those every day tasks and the net result is that we don’t apply for the job, we never reach out for support, and we agonize over the tiniest details of projects and simple emails. Our work takes longer and our emotional fortitude wanes.

When we allow ourselves to linger in preparation mode rather than simply acting, not only do we prolong our current state (assuming we will EVENTUALLY act, which is not always the case, some of us prepare indefinitely) but we rob ourselves of the opportunity to create self-confidence.

Self-confidence is not something we are born with; it is something we create for ourselves.

How do we build it? We take action and fail and develop the ability to move forward despite the failure. When we know we can survive failure, heartache, embarrassment, shame, humiliation and all the other fantastic emotions that accompany failure, we learn to trust ourselves. We realize that we can weather any storm, overcome all those negative emotions. In that experience we develop confidence in ourselves because we know we can do and survive anything that comes our way.

Naturally, that means that in order to become more confident, we must fail. We must take action and set ourselves up to experience failure. If we don’t ever experience failure and adversity, how can we learn to trust in our ability to do and survive anything?

If we play it safe forever, allowing ourselves to linger in preparation so that when we do act, we can act perfectly (as if that ever really works) we prevent ourselves from simply acting and taking the chance that we might fail.

At the same time, we rob ourselves of the possibility that we might act and do it perfectly the first time. It just might work out! All those details you wants to distress over and sift through might never even matter. But you won’t know until you take the risk.

When we linger in preparation we imply that it is possible to know exactly what is needed for success and what is necessary to prevent failure. That is ridiculous.  If that were true, our lives would be very different. The truth is that we never know what will work or won’t work until we start acting and learning all the things that didn’t work.

When my clients explain to me why they aren’t taking action on things or why they are taking so long to complete their work, I challenge them to experiment with the concept of B- work. What if you allowed yourself to present B- work where it was warranted? What if you allowed yourself to recognize that sometimes done is actually better than perfect? What if you accepted that all the minutia, all those nagging second-guessing thoughts might not actually be important to the overall project? What if a client wants a B- answer and doesn’t want to pay for a A+ dissertation-worthy response?

What is the worst that could happen if you just committed to acting and stopped second-guessing?

Embarrassment…shame,…guilt…?

Those are all just vibrations in your body, caused by your thoughts. YOU and how you talk to yourself when things don’t go as planned, THAT is what causes those emotions.

The beauty of it all is that you control those thoughts and you can decide what you want to make it mean when your commitment to action is met with failure. 

It doesn’t have to mean that you are a failure or that you aren’t cut out for your job. It could simply mean that you learned how to not do something; you can add that learning to your arsenal, practice experiencing the feelings of embarrassment of guilt and just keep moving.

Without acceptance of failure, you will never create meaningful success. The price for success is repetitious failure. The process of repetitious failure creates self-confidence. What do you have to lose?

Are you wanting to take action but can’t figure out how to get moving? One session can make all the difference. Sign up for free session and get started creating the life you really want.

Photo by Karyme França from Pexels

As attorneys, it’s easy to look to our law school education as one of our greatest accomplishments. Have you ever thought back to that time and considered what you were thinking that got you through it? What were you believing about yourself that propelled you through those 5-hour finals?

Have you ever considered the opposite end of the spectrum? Consider some of your struggles in life. Times when you weren’t showing up in a way that you were proud of or times when you threw in the towel. What were you believing about yourself in those times?

Our beliefs about ourselves and our abilities bubble below the surface in everything that we do.

I can support you to identify your negative thinking patterns and shift to some prettier thinking but if the beliefs you have about yourself are toxic, none of our work will stick.

What we believe about ourselves and our abilities are often based upon our past experiences. What we were taught, what we have learned about ourselves from events 5, 10, 15 years ago. The truth is that none of that is relevant today. There is no reason our pasts have any bearing on our abilities today.

We can choose to believe anything we want to believe by ourselves.

We are not constrained by our pasts.

There is no universal truth about your ability to create the life you want to. It all depends upon whether or not you believe you can do it.

Many of my clients set big goals for themselves and whenever they are faced with challenge, their brain immediately offers them those deeply ingrained beliefs about themselves. I just don’t have what it takes. I’m not cut out for this. I’m not smart enough. I’m not good enough.

We have so many beliefs like these rolling around our brains, running automatically in the background like elevator music behind everything we do and everything positive thought we try to believe. We treat these words as if they are facts. There is a part of us that believes those statements about our abilities are true.

Unless and until you can identify and address your negative beliefs about yourself, you will never be able to achieve you dreams.

This is why so many of us achieve big things but those accomplishments never hit our radar. We finished law school, we landed that major clerkship, we got the job at prestigious firm but we still don’t feel fulfilled and we don’t feel happy. We barely pause for a moment to recognize the achievement because we still don’t believe we deserve it. We believe we aren’t worthy or good enough. We’re impostors and they will find us out! Those thoughts are playing in the background and drown out any positive interpretations of our accomplishments.

The accomplishments never make us feel better because our negative beliefs about ourselves jump in and remind us that it is never going to work. So many of us spend our lives caught in this cycle, constantly achieving and reaching goals but never feeling fulfilled.

The first step in learning to believe new things about yourself is to recognize the negative beliefs you are carrying around.

Take a look at them and see them for what they are: optional thoughts. Choices you are making.

Do you want to continue to believe those things?

Are those beliefs serving you?

How would your life be different if you chose to believe something different?

Second, allow yourself some grace for those thought errors.

You are human and your brain is really good and repeating those thought to keep you safe and cozy. There is nothing wrong with you. Recognizing that your brain has this thought pattern, is not a free pass to dive into another batch of negative self-talk about yourself. These negative thought patterns are normal; don’t beat yourself up for having them.

Third, force yourself to argue with the thought.

What if I am good enough?

What if I can  do this?

What if I can figure it out?

Let those questions lead your brain to some better fodder.

Finally, choose an alternative belief about yourself that does serve you and your goals.

Consider these suggestions:

It’s not what we do—it’s who we are.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You are enough.

Sometimes I doubt myself and that’s okay, I am learning to be more confident.

Nothing has gone wrong here.

I’m responsible for everything I think and feel.

My purpose is the life I am living now.

If you don’t do this work of recognizing and addressing those closely held beliefs you have about yourself and your worthiness, you will always be striving toward your goals while dragging a ball and chain.

Stop fighting yourself and get on the same team.

Get support for free by signing up for a free mini-session. I reserve three slots a week–get yours before it’s gone!

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

There is something about being surrounded by intelligent and talented humans that sends us right back to junior high. Feeling like we don’t fit in and not wanting to be found out in our discomfort.

For many of my female clients, it’s even worse when they are also struggling with their own physical insecurities. Not only do they start to fee like an impostor but they start to see everyone around them as some sort of a Stepford Lawyer. Everyone else is the total package, Elle Woods with the brain of RBG.

When you compare yourself to others, it sets you up for the great cop out.

Believing that others have “it” and we don’t, that we aren’t one of them, justifies our Grand Exit.

Those beliefs allow us to give up on ourselves. To quit before we even try. They completely set you up for failure.

If it were true that you either have “it” or you don’t or you’re one of them or you’re not, then OF COURSE, it would be perfectly logical and justifiable to quit. It wouldn’t make sense to continue. If we were playing monopoly and you didn’t have a board piece, there would be no sense in playing the game. It would make perfect sense to sit it out.

But these are not facts! There is no magical “it”!

There is no biological predisposition for success.

These are things you are choosing to believe. And you are choosing them because they justify your lack of trying. It’s easier to believe you don’t have “it” than to force yourself to keep trying and failing until you succeed.

These beliefs justify failing before you start.

When we believe we just don’t have it, we’re not one of them, it is our brain’s way of keeping us safe and protecting us.

Your brain is wired to keep you safe. In the cave. Away from things that might hurt you (lions, tigers, and judge-y lawyers, oh my!). Your primitive brain does not want you to try new things or put yourself out there. It wants you safe on the couch, hands full of Doritos, guzzling wine, high on dopamine. It wants you to commit to believing you aren’t one of them so you can get your ass back on the couch where the scariest thing you will encounter are re-runs of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Lawyers come in all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, educational levels, pedigree, etc. We need lawyers of all kinds because humans are not cookie cutter.

Some clients do not want an Elle Woods-RBG hybrid. They want someone who reminds them of their daughter, their trusted friend, someone they can relate to, someone they deem trustworthy or “normal”.

When you tell yourself, “I’m not one of them,” you are setting your brain on a mission to prove that thought true. It sets your mind on a collision course with everything you have ever done wrong and every area you have ever come up short. It will prove to you, without a doubt, that you my love, do not belong. You gave your brain an assignment (“I don’t belong”) and it’s going to get to work demonstrating the truth of that thought.

Buying into those beliefs blocks your innate ability to see it any other way.

If you commit to opening up to the opposite truth, imagine what your brain could show you. If you can consider “I am learning and struggling just like everyone else…we all have our challenges…perfection is an impossibility…they all went through the same things I’m going through,” imagine what your brain would show you to prove those thoughts.

How would your life change if you carried those possibilities with you?

Instead of fleeing from these people around us who seem to have it all together, what would it be like to engage them, learn from them, be inspired by them? I promise you, the closer you get to those Stepford humans, the less Stepford and more plain human they will become.

Stop putting others on a pedestal.

Stop making yourself less than. You are giving up on yourself so that you don’t have to run the race. That, my friend, is not a pattern you want to become skilled at. That is the recipe for a life un-lived, a life without discomfort.

Impostor syndrome is not a thing. Let me prove it to you.

The fear of failure, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of how we will feel if it all falls apart, is at the heart of it all. Here’s what our friend Merriam-Webster Google has to say about fear:

an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Let’s break this down…

Fear is an “unpleasant emotion” caused by a “belief”. Beliefs are choices we make in our brains based upon thoughts we hold to be true. So fear is an uncomfortable emotion caused by our thoughts. That is all that is holding you back from taking action, from making that move, from leaving your soul-less job. You are letting your brain ruin all the fun.

If you want to lose 50 pounds, don’t let an unpleasant emotion hold you back, don’t be afraid to fail. So what if you fail? What’s the worst thing that could happen? Embarrassment? It’s just a feeling caused by what you are thinking. How you will feel after a failure is driven 100% by what you make that failure mean. We all do it. You set a lofty goal and then when you miss the mark you think “I’m never going to fit into those pants again” or “I’m never going to get promoted” or “Why do I even bother trying.” Ugh those thoughts are dream-killers. You are choosing to think that garbage and it is making you feel terrible.

If you have a lofty goal that you are not pursuing, ask yourself why. What is the worst that could happen? You don’t achieve it? So what? What is it about that failure that is so scary? 99% of the time we are afraid of how we will feel once we fail. We are afraid of feeling disappointed in ourselves. So instead, we put our little dream on the shelf and feel disappointed in ourselves for not trying. Don’t you see that we are already feeling those things we are trying to avoid!? Instead of trying, failing, and feeling disappointed. We are not trying, not failing, and feeling disappointed all the same. People, this is some kind of crazy.

I am challenging you to try and fail, despite the fear. Try and fail and feel those feelings having known that you actually tried. If you’re going to feel crappy you might as well do something first to feel crappy about. Don’t feel crappy about your inaction. You don’t deserve to feel crappy about your situation unless and until you have actually tried and failed.

But let me challenge you even more. I submit that, if you try and fail and continue to try and fail, despite those feelings, you will win every time. Every single time you try and fail, you will develop yourself. You will learn how not  to achieve your goal, you will learn alternative methods to try and achieve your goal. You will learn how to manage those feelings of shame, fear, embarrassment, etc. You may not even have the same goals on the other side of all the trying. I do not believe that someone can try and fail to achieve a goal repeatedly and gain nothing from the process. It’s impossible.

If you are not trying and failing on a regular basis, my guess is that you are already sitting with those ugly feelings you are trying to avoid by preventing failure. If you are not trying and failing at something all the time, I am begging you to examine what it is that is holding you back. Shame? Embarrassment? Those are all just feelings. Driven by your thoughts. Driven by what you are making your “failures” mean! Failure doesn’t have to mean you are hopeless and destined to be unhappy. Failure can mean that you are dedicated to learning and evolving. To challenging yourself and learning to manage your brain. Are your dreams really worth ignoring because you don’t have what it takes to experience uncomfortable emotions? Take that leap.

What is the worst that could happen?

Coach with me and learn the skills to fail forward.

If I had a magic wand and told you that I could give you the career of your dreams, would you be interested? What if I told you I would give it to you only if you first promised to fail 10 times trying to do it on your own? Big fails. EPIC fails. All I ask of you is that you try to figure it out on your own 10 times, and fail 10 times. After those 10 tries, it’s yours. Fail ten times and I will waive my magic wand and I will make it so. Would you do that?  

Of course you would. The problem is that we are truly faced with this very offer every single day of our lives and very few of us take the challenge. We are too afraid to fail. We are too caught up in our reptilian brain that says “welp, I hate my boss and I don’t LOVE my job but it pays the bills and life is secure under this cozy little comfort blanket. I am not going to rock the boat, things are fine; this is what it means to be a grown-up.”

Are things fine?

Are you going to be satisfied when you are 80 years old and you look back at that job and that life that were just fine?! What if you were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow and had only one year left to live? Would you keep playing it safe and being fine.  

Fine is such a blasé, gross word. There are so many beautiful words in our vocabulary. If “fine” truly sums up your present state, rest assured, my friend, you are far from fine. I refuse to believe that we were meant to live a life that is “fine.” I believe we were meant to live a life that is exciting and full of highs and lows and all the colors of the rainbow.  We aren’t meant to live in the doldrums.

I want you to live with the old lady version of yourself on your shoulder urging you on, saying, “let’s make this happen, lady, I’m not getting any younger!” 

Years ago I found myself in the middle of a violent and abusive relationship. Drifting through life pretending I was fine despite my deep depression and dark thoughts. You know what finally snapped me out it? What really made me wake up and decide I wasn’t going to live like that anymore? I could not reconcile the person I had become with the person I dreamt of becoming. I looked in the mirror and realized that my 5-year-old self would be disappointed in the woman I had become. Ouch. It broke my heart how far I had strayed from my true north. I wanted more for myself and I had set my little 5-year old heart on a bright future. A future that I was presently squandering. 

I want you to have that wake up moment too. I want you to see the big picture, step out of the race, breathe, and own your space in this world.

What do you want your story to be? What kind of tales do you want to create for your old lady self to recite to her friends in the retirement home over a cup of tea?   What kind of legacy do you want to leave?   Don’t disappoint yourself by living out of tune with your purpose. You never know what news is waiting for you tomorrow.   How do you find that purpose? Coach with me and let’s find out.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Henry Ford.

Why is it that we don’t do those things?

For many of my clients it’s because they are afraid of failure. They are afraid of how they will feel if that book gets rejected by every editor, your solo practice tanks, you realize you hate this new practice area after all, or your spouse decides to leave you. They are afraid of failing.

Given that this thing, failure, is standing in the way of so many dreams and preventing us from honoring ourselves, I think it makes sense to see what this failure thing is all about.

If you put “what is failure” into your magical computing machine, you get all sorts of interesting feedback. Wikipedia tells me that “failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.” As you go down the internet rabbit hole, you will also find other interesting tidbits. Success.com says that failure is caused by lack of persistence, lack of conviction, rationalization, poor self-esteem, etc.

Putting this all together, it seems that the reason we are not writing the next Harry Potter series or asking for that promotion, is because we are afraid we will not be successful — we will not meet the desired result or objective.

So, instead of trying and failing, we choose to fail in this very moment.

Rather than try and not achieve the desired result, we are not trying and not achieving the desired result. Do you see that it’s certainly possible that we will fail in either event but in one instance we are actually taking authentic action and in the second we are giving in to the lack of persistence, lack of conviction, rationalization, and poor self-esteem?

Rather than taking the chance and failing in the future, you are not taking the chance and choosing to fail now.

What’s more is that most of my clients also choose to give themselves the gift of those negative failure feelings right now. Instead of first trying and riding the waves of motivation and excitement to pursue their dreams and then fail, they are not pursing their dreams at all and feeling terrible now for not pursuing them. They are beating themselves up as if they actually tried and failed but in reality they did nothing. What lunacy is this!?

So what’s the big deal with failure anyway – whether it’s now or in the future – why do we let it keep us from our goals? The truth of the matter is that failure is NOT a big deal. It’s not a big deal until we choose to make it a big deal.

Until we decide what it means to us . . . what it means about us. Failing is simply not meeting your desired objective. It does not mean you are a bad person, it does not mean you can’t achieve your dreams, it doesn’t mean anything until you ascribe a meaning to it and have thoughts about it!

You can choose what to think about your failures and how you think about it will drive how you feel about it and how you feel about yourself. Why are so many of us choosing to make it mean something so negative? When we make failure mean something negative about ourselves, we allow ourselves to fear failure because we are afraid of how we will feel when we fail. That fear is paralyzing so many of my clients and it’s all because of a choice they are making.

Henry Ford famously said “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” He knew that every. single. time. you fail you learn how to not do something. You learn something about yourself, you learn something about the process, you might even learn that you no longer want that goal. Fearing failure is nothing more than being afraid to learn and grow.

If someone said to you, “I am going to win a gold medal at the Olympics on my first try and I am never going to lose a race on my way to the top,” you would think they were crazy. We know failure is a precursor to great success. So why is it that we can’t give that same rational grace to ourselves?

To attain your goals, you are going to have to get comfortable with failure and treat those failures as simply getting you one step closer.

If you want to do something, if you have a dream or a goal or a conversation you want to have, don’t be afraid to take that action and learn from your experience. Don’t anticipate that failure and plan on how you will make that failure mean something negative about yourself. Failure means nothing until you have a thought about it – good or bad – so why let it hold you back? However that experience turns out, you will learn something and, who knows, you might actually write the next Harry Potter on your first try but you won’t know until you act.

I think we should all commit to failing regularly. Ask someone out on a date, try a new workout class, pick up a new language, ask for that raise . . . whatever that might be. If the only thing that is holding you back is the fear about how you will feel if you don’t achieve it, you are allowing your life to be dominated by the fear of failure. Don’t fear failure. Embrace it like a badge of honor because the more you fail, the better you are going to know how to succeed.

After all, fear only hurts if you make it mean something negative.

I teach my clients that they need to be failing massively and often. They take the fruits of those failures and build their dreams. It’s amazing to see what people can do if they adjust the way they see failure and its necessary place in our lives.

Having an uncomfortable dream means being willing to fail and knowing that you can think about those failures however you want — positive or negative. In the end, it’s all progress toward your dreams.

Overcoming the fear of failure and learning to fail forward is at the heart of my coaching practice. Join me and let’s see what fearless looks like on you.