Failing Forward
One of the biggest things that holds us back from reaching our goals is a fear of failure.
Failure for a lot of us really is a big scary fear.
So today I want to talk about failure – more specifically how it’s a necessary part of success.
I also want to talk about how we can use the concept of failing forward to achieve our goals.
To start out with, let’s examine the word FAILURE.
Google defines failure as: the omission of expected or required action.
This doesn’t seem like a big deal right. It’s just something that didn’t turn out the way we expected it to.
This happens all the time.
For instance, we expect to get to Church on time, and we show up a few minutes late. Or we wanted to get some laundry done, but we didn’t get around to it. According to the definition, we could consider all of those failures.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t get too hung up on being a few minutes late or not doing laundry. So why do we make some failures be such a big deal and others we don’t?
I think it all boils down to what we make those failures mean.
Failure is just a circumstance. It means nothing until we have a thought about it – thoughts are what gives everything its meaning.
When we arrive at church at 9:05 instead of 9:00, we might have a thought like “Oh well, at least we actually made it.” . . or something like that.
The problem and the fear associated with failure comes from having thoughts about our failure that we make mean something about us.
We make it mean we’ve been excluded, that we’re being kicked out of the tribe.
Failure becomes scary when we transform failure from an action (I failed) to an identity (I’m a failure).
For example, I could have a thought about showing up to Church at 9:05 that was something along the lines of “I’m such a loser, we’re late again, I never do things right and everyone else does.” This thought produces a feeling of shame. We feel shame when we think we’re being judge as less than by others or by ourselves.
Many of us are so afraid of failing that we just don’t do anything.
We’re so afraid of what others will think of us.
We afraid of the feelings we will have – the embarrassment, the humiliation, the shame. . .
We keep our expectations and set our goals so low, that there is no chance of us ever failing.
Another way we prevent failing is by quitting. When we set BIG GOALS, all of our doubt, all of our frustration, and our discomfort comes up. Then if we actually do start taking action, we start failing and failing again, and then we have even more doubt and frustration and discomfort that comes up. Eventually we get to a point where we want to quit so bad. We decide we’ve made a bad choice and we quit.
Once we quit, we get a huge sense of relief.
Relief feels so good. It feels amazing! You get to go into the comfort of your own cave. You no longer have to put yourself out there into the world.
But when you sit inside our comfortable cave all day long, you also stop growing because success cannot grow in comfort zones.
Quitting also confirms your current identity. You’re like, “See I knew I wasn’t capable of this.”
Brooke Castillo says, Quitting doesn’t get you there faster and she’s right, it doesn’t work!
My point is, it feels really good to quit, it is comfortable to do nothing.
But eventually we start to feel restless. We aren’t growing! We aren’t challenging ourselves. When we aren’t setting and working on reaching for any goal, westaying stagnant.
Think of it this way, what happens to water when it’s stagnant? It gets really gross-It gets murky and stinky. This is how we feel when we’re stagnant.
This is why setting goals and working towards achieving them is so important. We don’t want to stay stagnant and stinky.
I heard someone say that success and failure hang out in the same neighborhood, and it’s so true.
In order to achieve our goals, we need to be taking massive action. What is massive action? Massive action is action that produces results.
The opposite of massive action is passive action. Passive action is learning and consuming. It’s not producing results. A lot of times we think passive action is massive action but it’s not. Passive action usually does not feel uncomfortable, it’s usually us reading a book, or watching a class online or maybe attending a class in person.
Massive action means putting ourselves out there in the world. It means trying things we’ve never done before and failing! Success was built on failures.
Let’s take Thomas Edison for example. He quote/unquote failed 1000 times to invent the lightbulb. What if he’d given up and quit after his first attempt or his 12th attempt or even his 100th? Or 999th? We might not have lightbulbs.
I love the quote that is accredited to him that says, “I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
We cannot be afraid to fail! If we’re afraid to fail, we usually don’t even try or at least don’t really give it our all, and not trying just means we’ve failed ahead of time.
So, my challenge to you today is to fail forward – Go out and FAIL TODAY! Do not avoid failure.
Failing forward means you keep taking action even when things don’t work out. You keep trying things. Don’t quit. You keep trying things until eventually you find something that does work, and you reach your goal!
There’s a TED Talk I listened to years ago by a man that purposely failed once a day for 100 days. He did things like asking for a burger refill and asking a stranger for $100. The reason he did this was to build up a resistance to failure.
When we’re not scared of failure, we’re willing to try anything. We’re willing to set really high goals, because it doesn’t matter if we fail or not.
One last example is of a baby learning to walk. A baby doesn’t just think, “I’m going to walk” and then he or she walks. NO! It takes learning to stand and falling several 1000’s of times in the process.
Then it takes learning to move their legs one at a time, and again falling down and getting back up and falling down and getting back up.
It’s actually in the getting back that their muscles are strengthened. This gives them the strength they need to support their body weight enough to walk. The falls are actually strength builders.
Same with us, each time we fall or each time we fail and get back up and try again and again, we’re getting stronger and stronger, we are learning and growing.
The whole reason for setting goals, is not so we get this awesome reward at the end, that’s nice and all, but the reason we set goals any goal is for the personal growth. It’s a skill builder. It’s not necessarily the destination, but the journey that matters.
So if at first you don’t succeed try, try again and again and again -1000 plus times until you do.
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