What if you knew you couldn’t fail? How would that change the way you behave, the decisions you make, the way of you treat people, and how you show up in life?

Today on I Love Me The Podcast, we learn how failing is a myth, and how our so-called ‘mistakes’ are actually learning experiences in disguise.

 

Do you sometimes feel like a failure?

Like you’ve stuffed up, made a mistake, or simply aren’t doing as well as you think you should be?

Well..

You’re not alone.

Everyone feels this way at some point in their life.

Some people feel like a failure on a daily basis!

For others, it’s just a passing fling with failure.

Whatever your experience with failure, know that:

In life you CAN’T fail.

There are NO mistakes.

Seriously!

For when we do something, when we step out on a limb, take a chance, give something a good ol’ go..

When we set out to achieve something…

We either get the result we want, OR we get a learning.

If we pay attention to the learning, then that will guide us closer to getting the result we want.

So in this way, you can’t fail.

The only two options are… get the result… or get a learning.

Take a moment to consider how that feels in your body.

If you can’t fail – if failure is simply not one of your options – how does that change things for you?

It probably feels pretty different, right?

Now…

I know it’s easy to feel disappointed in those times when we get the learning as opposed to the result we we hoping for.

And in this moment it can feel difficult to find the primary benefit of this so-called ‘failure’ or ‘mistake’.

But if we’re willing to sit with the result we did get, analyse it, feel into, seek out what it can offer us, then answers will come.

Guidance will arrive into our consciousness.

I remember when I first launched my school Getting Naked back in 2011, and I was launching my second book Getting Naked The Dating Game at the same time.

So I put on this festival to launch both my school and my book.

It was an amazing event, we had lots of people show up, there were a couple of bands I’d chosen to perform, there were stalls people could peruse, and have a make-up trial or taste chocolate.

All of the healthy variety, and in line with Getting Naked’s values.

It was a really fun, cool event.

But at the end of the night, I felt like a real failure.

Because not only had I barely sold any books, there’d been no enrolments in my school.

And I was stumped, because everyone had said how much of a great night it’d been, and I’d sold heaps of books two years earlier at the launch of my first book The Upside of Down: A personal journey and toolkit for overcoming depression.

So I was confused.

What happened this time?

What went wrong?

I sat with it over the next week, let out my frustrations, talked out my disappointment, and then it came to me…

The purpose of the Getting Naked festival had been diluted.

There was too much going on.

So yes, it was a cool event, but the message wasn’t clear.

Was it a book launch?

Was it a business launch?

Was it an event to come and try the healthy Pana Chocolate one of my stallholders was giving away…

Or maybe it was simply a fun night to have a drink with friends and watch a band?

Without the clear focus that my previous book launch had had, the launch of my second book kinda got lost in all the excitement and activity.

When I realised this, it all made so much sense.

And that feeling of being a failure, completely lifted.

Because… I’d got the lesson.

I knew that next time I launched a book, it would be a book launch, and a book launch only.

Sure I could have some entertainment, but forget turning it into a full blown festival.

There were way too many distractions for people, too many places stealing away their attention.

And this is something we can all learn from…

When we set out to do something – whatever it is – we need to make sure we have a very clear intention.

A purposeful message, that is straight to the point.

Like this podcast episode, the main message I want to share with you here, is:

It’s impossible to fail.

Because you either get the result you want, or you get a learning.

Yes, there is a benefit to ‘failing’ as you may have called it in the past.

It gives you the chance to learn something.

To learn something that will help you on your way to your desired outcome.

I love these words from Financial Times columnist Tim Harford…

‘Success comes though rapidly fixing our mistakes, rather than getting things right the first time.’

This is the message he shares in his book: ’Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure’:

Because if you think about it, when we’re trying to do something new, it’s new.

We’ve never done it before and so, most likely, we don’t know the best way to do it.

So all we can do, is give it a go.

Yes, research, learn from others…

But at the end of the day, there comes a point, where you just need to give it a go.

And in doing so, you get offered this amazing opportunity to learn.

To learn about what works, what doesn’t work, how you could do it better next time…

And this is so empowering, because then simply giving things a go – even when they feel scary – offers us the chance to learn something.

I now treat life like a school.

Because it’s always teaching me things, offering me direct feedback, which if I take on board, allows me to modify my approach so I can create even better results in the future.

Of course, this willingness to accept the learnings, does require us to place our ego to the side, so we can simply be observers of life, as opposed to taking everything so personally.

Which is really easy to do.

Because we’re human.

And there can be a tendency to take things personally.

But when we accept our so-called ‘failures’, this becomes an act of self-love.

We show ourself compassion.

We back ourself, regardless of our outcomes.

We see the good in each action we took.

And in doing so, we deepen our love for ourself.

We learn how to accept ourself that little bit more.

Part of being human is about exposing ourselves to many different things.

It’s in our best interests to try new ideas, trip up, get up, trip up again, and get up once more.

This so-called ‘Failure’ is nothing more than feedback.

Feedback… letting us know a new path is now required.

If we can remove our ego from the equation, then that feedback is extremely powerful in helping us move forward.

But if we let our ego take hold, then that failure will become our undoing.

So it really comes down to how we choose to respond to our results in life.

Trial and error.

Embrace it!

That is how we get what we want in life.

That is part of the process.

Maybe you do marry a person that you later realise was not a great choice for you.

That’s ok.

Learn from it.

How did you show up in the relationship?

How can you show up better, next time?

What qualities in this person were not a great fit for a thriving life-long partnership?

And what kind of qualities do you now believe would support you in having the relationship you envision?

These are the kinds of questions you want to ask yourself, journal with, ponder, meditate on…

The thing is, all of these apparent ‘mistakes’ or ‘failures’ are leading you to where you need to be.

They’re all leading you to your purpose.

So as you can see, there is no such thing as failure.

There are no ‘wrong’ paths.

Failures, mistakes, stuff-ups; these all fuel our growth.

In fact they are part of the growth.

They’re there to move us into our aligned direction.

We get as much from our so-called ‘losses’ as we do from our apparent ‘successes’.

The mistakes, and I say mistakes in ‘inverted commas’…

The mistakes, are there to wake us up!

To get our attention.

To say ‘Hey. It’s now time to move in this direction’.

To move us out of our comfort zone so we can grow.

And often the bigger the ‘mistake’ or ‘failure’, the bigger the transformation available to us, if we listen to what that result has to offer us.

Lessons.

HUGE lessons.

And with lessons, comes growth.

When we’re able to understand that our failures are part of the journey, then we no longer get thrown or disheartened by a loss of a job or relationship, a bad grade or a physical injury.

These results are simply showing us a new direction.

Our life is so much bigger than any one experience.

The only way I’ve created my own happily right NOW – where I love my life – is to stuff up.

LOTS.

To supposedly fail…. MANY times.

As my second book Getting Naked shares, I kissed way too many toads before I landed a Prince.

But that was part of my journey.

And helped set me up for a really loving, healthy, supportive relationship with my husband.

If I hadn’t have experienced all the relationship doozies first, I probably would’ve ended up in a relationship that was suffocating me.

That simply didn’t work.

Where I didn’t know how to be a good partner.

Because in having relationships that went – what some people may label as wrong – I was able to reflect on my behaviours within those relationships and see where I was out of integrity.

It was this awareness that helped me clear the programming, the old hurts, the cruddy beliefs that made me show up in a way that wasn’t true for me.

Because I never saw these relationships as failures, but opportunities to grow and learn, that’s what I did: Grow and learn.

Learn how to be a good partner.

Learn how to choose a good partner for me.

Sometimes I didn’t get the lesson straight away.

In fact, I often didn’t get the lesson straight away.

But what we miss the first time around, will be re-shown to us, until we get it.

I really can’t say this enough…

We are not defined by one moment where we felt like a failure.

We are not defined by that time someone called us a ‘failure’.

Failure doesn’t exist.

Failure is in our mind.

What failure really is, is the catalyst for growth.

When you feel like you’ve failed, ask yourself one question:

What is this here to teach me?

If you take this lesson and act upon it, then you are one step closer to where life wants to take you.

LOVE your failures as much as your wins, for they are the building blocks to your personal kingdom.

We don’t learn near us much from our wins.

So LOVE your failures, and they will serve you.

If you loved this episode then I would be ever so grateful if you’d leave a short review of rating.

And next week, we’ll dive into one’s purpose.

Because when you know your purpose, life gets a whole lot clearer… and easier!

Thanks for listening, and if you’re loving what I’m sharing on I Love Me The Podcast, and want to dive deeper into self-love, take a peek at my online school gettingnaked.com.au where I teach you how to strip off the layers of childhood conditioning, so you can fall in love with YOU.

Sign up for your free Self-Love Starter’s Kit there, and if you do enrol in any of my programs, know that a percentage of profits go to planting trees, so together we can re-robe Mother Earth.