Last week my 9-year old daughter, Ella, learned a valuable lesson. That it’s okay to fail. She and her friends worked so hard preparing a dance for the talent show at their school. They performed it for the school during the day without a hitch, and when it came time for the actual show in the evening, Ella missed an entire part of the dance. It sort of threw her friends off, as she was the one leading the way. Here we are before the performance 🙂
The best part is she learned a valuable lesson. She SURVIVED. She lived. She was, and is, safe & loved. As much as we tell our kids it’s okay to fail, we also need to let them have the experience of failing, so that they can actually see it’s actually okay. Now was it actually even a failure? Hmm…sounds like a great lesson to me.
Read today’s article to learn how to reframe failure into something good and Ella’s strategy (which we can all borrow), for moving through a perceived “f&ck up”.
How many times do we fail in a week? A LOT.
We set expectations for ourselves (usually too high), and do not meet them. Whether it’s spending more time with our kids, having more patience, meditating more, working out more, eating better, making more sales calls, etc. etc. etc. You get the gist. The theme being “more”. It’s never enough and we create goals and expectations from this place as a result.
We set the bar too high.
It’s because we think we are missing something to begin with and are operating from a palace of lack from the get go. We think we need to prove something to ourselves that then makes us feel good enough and finally worthy enough in return.
BUT we already are good enough. We’ve just forgotten. It’s that darn ego that wants to tell us otherwise.
So how would your goal setting and expectations look if you came from this place instead? Where you already are good enough just the way you are? You would probably cut yourself a break and not make such outlandish expectations of yourself.
Because guess what? They are designed to make you fail and therefore stay in the cycle of not good enough. Because that is the mindset you made those expectations from to begin with.
That’s step 1 in shifting failure. Create realistic plans and make decisions from already being enough to begin with. THEN add in what makes you thrive and be the best version of you – every area in your life will start to flow as a result.
Step 2 is pondering whether or not these perceived failures are even failures anyway.
Everything we do is just information. It’s information on what’s working and what’s not. It helps us craft our next steps and course correct as we go.
I prefer to reframe “failure” as feedback. When we take away the judgment it’s neither good nor bad, it just is. And it’s what we do with the information that matters.
Step 3 brings us to judgment…ahhh…
If we didn’t care what other people thought would it even feel like a failure anyway? The best part with Ella’s routine is that no one even noticed as they didn’t know what the routine was supposed to look like. And even if they did, does it matter? We went to see the Cirque du Soleil the other night and one of the performers almost fell off the stage, not once but three times!! Did it affect the show? No. It was still amazing. AND aside form that we’re all human. Stuff happens.
BUT Ella did notice and was upset with herself. This brings me to step 4.
Step 4 is how to move through it when we do care what other people think AND more importantly are disappointed with ourselves.
We think of our pets. Yep that’s it. Our loving animals who are always there for us no matter what. Unconditional love. Ella said she just thought of our puppy Gracie and felt much better and was able to let it go. By the end of the show she could have cared less.
Now, we will work on the outward display of eye rolling though after a f&ck up does occur and how to keep our emotions to ourselves 😉 We can’t learn every lesson at once right?!
The lesson being find what works for you to shift your state. Maybe it’s something funny, or a mantra and a few deep breathes. Whatever works, do it and practice it often. Shifting our state is everything in letting go and seeing the situation at hand with clarity and truth instead.
Have a great weekend!
xo