Are you trying to avoid failure at all costs?
Most people (especially women) don’t actually do anything to be successful because the dreaded F word literally paralyzes them. That’s how fatal meaning they are giving to failure.
During the ten years of my work with clients, I’ve been getting the same answer when I ask them what failure means to them. Every single time. If they try something big and fail in a spectacular way, for them, it means:
- they’re not good enough
- they’re not lovable
- they’ll be abandoned
- they’ll die alone
Interestingly, we get terrified of success too. My clients have pretty similar answers when we talk about fear of success. Although we don’t start with, I’m not enough, but with, I think I’m better than… somehow we come to: Somebody else will feel threatened and destroy me.
And here we go again: Therefore, I will lose everything I have, which means:
- I’m not worthy
- I’m not deserving
- I’m not enough
- I’m not lovable
- I will die alone
Isn’t it really fascinating how the programs we run and all of the societal conditioning we have had over thousands of years make us so terribly afraid of failure?
So, can we change the meaning of failure? What do you do when you fail? Is it possible to turn your mistakes into stepping stones for success?
Of course, the answer is YES to all these questions.
Tune in for this episode as I’m explaining how to overcome the fear of failure and what to do when you make mistakes.
Let’s jump in!
Close the Gap
I used to have the same issue with failure. Not to the point where I wasn’t taking risks, but man, it was so scary! Especially when I started my business because I was so terrified of failure and the possibility of getting it wrong.
And I did. I had epic fails … not just once – over and over and over again. Actually, I made mistakes more often than not. But when I got it right, it was definitely in a more powerful way than when I got it wrong.
So, what should you do when you fail or make a mistake? N.o.t.h.i.n.g. Just keep moving forward. What you need to do is change the meaning of failure. And all that failure means is There was a gap that you didn’t see. That’s it!
You just need to close that gap and go on with your journey. We close gaps all the time. Have you ever got caught with a button on your shirt or a zipper undone? What have you done about that? Probably just tightened up the button and closed the zipper.
So, you’ve found the gap and closed it. Look at failure in the same way – it’s just a gap you weren’t counting on. I don’t say that changing the meaning of failure (or anything else) is easy. Especially when we’ve been (probably unconsciously) building that specific meaning all our life.
Both Success and Failure Are Feedback
You know that saying that you certainly heard many times, Failure is feedback. I was like, Yeah, it is, but success is feedback too. And both of them are valuable.
But what success doesn’t show me is where the gaps are. When I realized this, it was proof that failure is even more valuable than success because it shows me where the gaps are so that I can tighten them.
The best thing is that we can do this in many different situations:
- in conversations with others
- in relationships
- in weight loss goals
- in our desire to have a higher connection with God
- in our money, business, and professional goals
Just identify those gaps and close them so you can be even more successful next time. Like in that cliche – fail your way to success. The good thing about cliches is that you know they are true. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t become cliches.)
And failing your way to success is exactly how it should be – you get successful through failure, willingness to experiment and test, and willingness to get it wrong.
I Gave Myself Permission to Make Mistakes
The whole world opened up to me when I finally sat down my need to be right and became okay with getting it wrong. Because before that, I was approaching life as if I was in a sudden deathmatch – if I didn’t get it right, everything would go to the pack. And then I would die.
(Maybe that’s why they call it sudden death, right?)
Then I decided to give myself permission to:
- make mistakes
- let it be raw and messy
- let it be imperfect
- let other people think what I’m doing is nonsense
When I stopped caring about that and started looking at everything as an experiment, the ideas started to come.
And it was the only possible outcome because that’s the nature of an experiment – you get playful. You’re like, Let’s do something and see what happens. I think this is going to work, but I’m not quite sure. So let’s run some tests.
After I let myself experiment, I found myself totally loosening up. And then I went a little further: Here’s my huge goal – let’s see how close we can get to it. I don’t know if it is possible for us to get here in this amount of time – I’ve never done it before, so let’s see!
And let’s be open to the failures. And gaps.
Set Perfectionism Aside
What I have realized applying this in every area of my life is that there is at least a little bit of success in every failure. The fact that you tried it, even if it’s an epic fail, is a success. And then you can see what you’ve learned from that failure that you didn’t know before.
Running this experiment, I found that the market doesn’t want a certain product or is not ready for it. That might be an epic failure for the product, but it was really successful because now we know what we shouldn’t waste our time and money on.
This approach is essential for perfectionists because they literally become paralyzed when faced with the possibility of messing something up. (Some claim it’s just an excuse not to go for their dreams, but we won’t go there now.)
Growth Over Comfort
There is such a relief coming from a sincere decision to set aside perfectionism and start experimenting. To experiment ultimately means to grow. Because you’re becoming the next version of yourself every time you learn something new.
When you finally choose growth over your desire to stay safe, the world starts opening up to you. Of course, it’s opening for both good and bad things, but if you close yourself off from potential hurt, you also close yourself off from possible joy.
So don’t shy away from making mistakes. Get your hands muddy, get the paint flung everywhere… There are erasers, and other paints that can go over the top, or you can redo that. That’s what life is all about.
We hang out in the Success Without Struggle Facebook group. Join us and learn all the ways to achieve high levels of prosperity.
Get the free Prosperity Guide and share your story in the Prosperity Experience Facebook group!
I’d be so grateful and honored if you took the time to subscribe and leave a rating and review.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch: screenshot this episode and tag me on Instagram at @allysonchavez.