In life, failure, loss, mistakes, or challenges are inevitable. They are one of life’s certainties, along with change, life, and death. Failure is a critical component of our growth journeys, after all, without failure, mistakes, or challenges, how would we learn?
Despite failure or loss being a certainty, why do we find it so challenging? As imperfect humans, we find change challenging enough, as we go through different stages of grief, denial, anger, and acceptance. But somehow embracing change to experience failure on the other side just seems that little bit harder to accept.
While failing or disappointment doesn’t always feel nice, I wonder, is that really the crux of the problem? Or is it indeed the fact that we are not scared to fail so much as we are scared of the embarrassment that we perceive “failure” to bring? Therefore, to “save face,” we don’t even try in the first place?
The inner (and mostly subconscious) thought is “I can’t fail if I never try,” or you could look at it as “I can’t have tried if I never fail.”
Let’s dig in though. What is it we find so embarrassing about failure? Is it our egos? Is it our pursuit of perfection? Or is it the fact that we want to pretend that we have our shit together, and therefore admitting that we’re struggling or have failed at something feels too vulnerable? Are we afraid of being vulnerable?
What is it about vulnerability that feels well, vulnerable?
What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that someone may make fun of us? Point fingers or blame? Or try to rub salt in a wound we possess and “kick us while we’re down” – And if so, we must ask ourselves, why do I care in the first place? Does our fear of being vulnerable tell us something new that we didn’t realise about ourselves in the first place? And are we actually scared of being vulnerable, or instead are we scared about being introspective?
Because if we were able to take an introspective and self-reflective approach, we could ask ourselves what learning can be had by understanding and acknowledging that we feel vulnerable in the first place?
When it comes to “being made fun of’, you may have heard the saying “You’ll never be made fun of by someone doing more than you”. If you find yourself being made fun of, important self-reflective questions you can ask here are: Do I respect the other person’s opinion? And is there something I can learn from this?
Remember, a lot of us project fears onto others (sometimes knowingly or unknowingly). When they’re stretching themselves or doing something new, it can cause us to trigger thoughts about ourselves, our limitations, and fears. Again, the question, no matter which side of the equation you find yourself on, is, what can I learn from this?
All we can do is learn.
If we were to know that, no matter what, the only guaranteed outcome of trying is that we are going to learn, learn more about ourselves, our fears, our wounds, and our limitations, then what stops us? Are we able to view failure differently?
Anytime we fail, we learn, we pivot, we adapt, and we grow.
When have you ever accomplished or achieved something you wanted the very first time? Imagine the first job interview you went for you got, the first sporting competition you took part in you won, and your first business idea was the one to hit the jackpot.
While of course, it’s sometimes nice to “win” or “accomplish” the first time, imagine there was no challenge in life, no learning to be done, and it was all just one straight shot. Wouldn’t that be boring? The joy of accomplishing something is often found in the pursuit of it, not in the achievement itself. If there is no pursuit, there is no learning and there is no growth.
Life is like Monopoly
If you will, think of life like a game of Monopoly that you play with your family at Christmas. Wouldn’t it be boring to play every single year if you knew you were always going to win? What’s the point?
You’d miss out on the family negotiation, the fun, and the suspense. You wouldn’t experience the highs of taking everyone’s money and wiping them out, or the lows of staying in jail because you don’t want to come out and land on your siblings’ row of hotels.
Like a family game of Monopoly, it’s about the memories and learnings along the way that make it fun. Yes, you know your dad cheats, keeps the best properties for himself, or does an unwarranted deal that’s not found in the rule book, but that’s how you learn to negotiate or work around him, and isn’t that why you play in the first place?
We must be willing to play the game.
In life, just like playing a good game of Monopoly, to learn, improve, and grow, we need to be willing to play the game. Think about it, you could be your gran sitting on the sidelines telling you what property to buy, how much to charge, and negotiate, or you can get in there and just play the game for yourself.
What truly have we got to fear? Learning something new about our vulnerabilities and where they come from? Someone making fun of us and then again asking ourselves why we care, and what we can learn from it? A bit of embarrassment?
Something I always say is we need to have the humility to be bad at something in order to get good at something. And NEWSFLASH.. as important as we think we all are, nobody thinks about us all that much. Remember, while we are our own main characters, for others, while we may cross their minds for a moment, 95% of their time is spent thinking about themselves.
So ask yourself this: are you going to sit on the sidelines, because of any of these reasons? At the end of your days, what would be worse? To never fail or to have never tried in the first place?
You have to be in it to win it.
That is the thing about playing Monopoly or this game of life, you have to be in it to win it! What do I mean by that? You have to have skin in the game. Sure, if you don’t play, you won’t get the lows, but you won’t get the highs either and what will you regret more when you get to the end?
There is a difference between a winning mindset and a losing mindset.
A winning mindset is not always about winning, but instead about looking for the opportunity and learning in every loss.
A losing mindset is to not even try to go for the win in the first place or to give up as soon as we hit a rough patch, instead of self-reflecting and asking ourselves, what can we learn and what would I do differently next time? It’s here my mum’s saying rings in my ears “As long as you learn Natalie, it’s never time wasted.”
What have you got to lose?
So ask yourself, what have I got to lose in the first place? I’m guessing that it’s not nearly as much as you’ll gain in the process. But the ultimate question is, are you willing to be vulnerable enough to give it a go? Vulnerability is uncomfortable, but just like loving someone, if you’re never vulnerable enough to let anyone in, sure, you’ll block out the hurt, but you’ll also block out the joy too.
One of life’s greatest privileges is to feel the depth and range of our human emotions, from excitement to disappointment, from heartbreak, sadness, and despair to happiness and euphoria. These emotions all come from a range of life lessons, which include winning and losing, but with each, we build skills and uncover traits we never knew we possessed, such as perseverance, resilience, drive, and motivation.
When we feel this range and depth of emotions, that’s how we know that we’re truly playing the game. So next time, ask yourself, am I ready to roll the dice? And if not, what’s stopping me?
Ready to learn and grow? Here’s how I can help:
- Follow me, Natalie Neilson, on Instagram/TikTok/LinkedIn/Substack/YouTube. Tune into my podcast, The Power of You (Available on Apple/Spotify podcasts) or sign up for my emails: https://natalieneilson.com/
- Enquire about speaking/workshops
- 1:1 growth sessions (limited)
- Coaching approaches at scale for your teams and organisation through TTM Coaching:
https://ttmcoaching.com/. You can also follow TTM Coaching on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
DM me or email for more info: Nataliej@ttmcoaching.com