Bonveda's Blog

Each human life has its share of "failures". It’s part of the human experience. Failure can mean all sorts of things to different people. It can mean that our plans have not gone as expected. It can mean a spectacular "failure" like bankruptcy, foreclosure or eviction. It can mean a minor disappointment. Some people see failure in the slightest variation from perfection. Others rationalize away colossal underperformance of their talents and abilities. Failure is what we make it to be. We can set the bar high and keep ourselves anxiously striving or we can live without standards and achieve little of what we’re capable of. To start with then, it’s important to get clear on what failure means to you and to understand how you use the concept of failure in your own life.

1.) First, take a look at how you might use fear of failure in your own life. Are you so afraid to fail that you won’t risk going after creating the life you really want? If this is true for you, you might ask yourself, "If I failed in creating the life I want, is it better to fail trying than not to try at all?" The road to success is a continuous succession of failures interspersed with corrections and successes. The only real failures are to never try at all and to give up in defeat when we "fail".

2.) How do you think of your failures? Are they shameful experiences for you, or do you consider them learning experiences? If failure is a source of shame to you, you are likely frozen in fear at any potential new risk. Obviously, this is going to limit your possibilities in life. The worst part is that it is self imposed limitation and is possibly based on your fears of the opinions of others rather than your own authentic opinion.

When we are able to look at failures as learning experiences, we are able to glean our lessons quickly, recorrect and get back to taking action. Examine these two different approaches. It should be obvious that transmuting failures into successes is going to yield much more satisfying results to us.

3.) In order to transform your views on failure, you may need to do some work on cleaning out non-supportive "mind chatter". We’ve all experienced the nagging or harping "voice in our head" that tells us everything we do is wrong. Usually these are leftover remnants of criticisms we’ve received earlier in our lives. Most of us don’t even understand these are at play in our lives.

We grow so accustomed to the "noise" that we lose awareness of its existence. We conform and constrict our lives to those subconscious limitations -- without understanding that is what we’re doing. Our fear of attracting further criticism like previous criticisms drives our behaviors in present day life. Better to evict these non-supportive mantras from our heads and replace them with positive expectations and supportive statements.

4.) What is your "mechanism" for interpreting failure? Do you see even the slightest deviation from your plan as a failure? Do you see failure as a simple bump in the road that you will correct as quickly as possible? There is a huge range of possible ways to interpret failure. Which interpretation serves you best in your desire to create the life you want? Which interpretation skews your results negatively? How can you tweak your methods of interpreting failure so that they support you?

5.) Take a long range view of failure. When you’re at the end of your life what will look like failure to you? Will those minor mistakes look like problems in the context of your entire life? It’s more likely that from the end of life viewpoint, real failure will be about having let fear keep you from a fulfilling life and not having lived as you chose. The rest will likely simply seem silly to you then.

6.) Decide that you will see failure differently. Choose to break out of the prison of fear of failure. Consider "failure" to be a common human experience -- not the most fun -- but not a permanent roadblock to success either.

Failure can become a passing "phase". It does not have to define your life or determine your ultimate outcome. Learn from failure and pick yourself back up as soon as you can. It does not have to mean an end to your progress. It can mean the beginning of a whole new expansion.

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