Self Advocacy & Celebrating Your Failures
Raise a glass to all your accomplishments! Can you think of 3 things you have accomplished?!? Did you rattle them off? Now, if I asked for 3 things that you didn’t accomplish, would those come to you much easier? What about 3 things you tried to do but failed to accomplish? These questions may seem like they’re asking the same thing, but there is meant to be a slight difference. Not accomplishing something means that you did not even try. Failing at something means that you tried and it didn’t work out.
This week’s topic is about self advocacy and celebrating your accomplishments. Why would I ask you about your failures? Bear with me and allow me to explain….
If you can think of answers to both of those questions, which one has a more positive result? Did not accomplishing something, or rather not even trying, get you any closer to your goals? What about something you tried to accomplish but failed? Failure may not have immediately helped you reach your goal, but it moved the needle forward by eliminating an option, giving you more information, or even providing another opportunity of some kind. Failure will at least teach us something but not trying at all gets the needle moving in the wrong direction.
For a lot of us, our self doubt comes much easier than our self confidence. Why do we tend to recall our failures as a place of negativity and shame? There is enough motivational material out there reminding us that failure is not only OK but necessary for growth, yet the struggle continues. So what can we do about it?!?
Let’s flip the script on failure! I initially wanted to ask you to share an accomplishment and force myself to rattle off some, too; however, I remembered a video series, “Failure Club,” I saw years ago that was all about celebrating failure to rewire our brain and it struck a nerve.
“In Failure Club, members learn to defy the fears associated with ‘failure’ by pursuing seemingly impossible goals that they set for themselves. From the outset, failure is not only a highly probable outcome, it is the desired outcome. Only through embracing the reality of failure can its’ societal stigmas be stripped away and replaced with an inspirational alternative.
The Failure Club process will rewire you to look at ‘failure’ as acceptable and even fun. It is only then that one discovers that most of life’s limitations are arbitrary, self-imposed, and based on fear. And when we overcome that fear, we blow away our self-inflicted limits, and we will each achieve results that appear miraculous.” (www.thefailureclub.com)
Who is ready to make failure a good thing?! Who is ready to celebrate their failures?! Let’s rewire our brains to celebrate rather than fear our failures. It is only through failing that we will know true success. What failures can we accomplish this year to set us up for massive growth?!?!
This post is written in partnership with #HerGrowthCollective, encouraging women to walk the path of self-development together.
