Why Failure Can Be Fabulous
Hello, my darlings. Today, I want to talk to you about why failure can be fabulous, and trust me, before I go any further, I get it. I know that voice in your head that is screaming right now,
“I don’t want to fail. I can’t be a failure.”
Failures Mean Nothing on Paper
Listen, I promise you, on paper, I’m one of the biggest failures you will ever meet. I mean, I have had two marriages ended in divorce, and I was nearly bankrupt a few years ago. And I was morbidly obese. I had all the health problems. The list goes on: a single mum of three girls, struggling on my own. I don’t think I did a very good job of parenting.
I mean, honestly, when I look back at my life, I could be considered, you know – I had a business fail – I could be considered the biggest failure.
But here’s the thing: failure will not kill you, I promise you, but your fear of failure will keep you from success. That much I do know.
Now, there’s an old saying, “Don’t let success go to your head, but don’t let failure consume your heart” and it’s very, very true.
We’re so worried about failure. When we fail, we feel like people are just going to be talking about us. We worry about what people think; we get heartbroken.
Why Failure Can Be Good
But here’s why failure could be good, and I really want you to take this on board, because if you can embrace failure, what I know for sure is you’re much more likely to succeed, because as I said, it’s that fear of failure that prevents us from putting ourselves out there and taking the steps that we absolutely need to succeed.
Whether it’s a promotion at work, or going out with the cute guy or the cute girl that we really find attractive, asking them out, whatever it is, and especially in business, by the way, fearing it will not make anything better.
So I’m going to convince you in the next few minutes – fingers crossed 😉 – why failure is actually fabulous.
Reason Number One
First and foremost, failure is a reality check. If you fail at something, if something didn’t go right, if your business went under, if you didn’t pass an exam you needed to, it’s a good idea to sit back and think, “Was this actually the thing that I should be doing?”
Because sometimes we do things that we think we should do; or we do things to please other
people; or we do things because we didn’t figure out a better solution to whatever we’re doing; we didn’t figure out a better way of spending our time. Some people go to university because it’s expected of them, or because they don’t want to start a job yet, but they don’t even consider why they went.
So failure is a reality check, sweetheart. If something didn’t work out, consider that it wasn’t supposed to. For example, two failed marriages. Why? Because I married two wrong people. (True story.) They were both utterly different from each other, but neither of them suited me. Neither of them brought out the best in me.
I had a business that failed. Why? Because it wasn’t really what I was supposed to do with my life. It wasn’t my calling. It wasn’t something that lit my soul, that made the world a better place, that I excelled at. I was okay at it.
So sometimes it just says to you, “You know what, sweetheart, this wasn’t for you,” and that’s okay, because imagine if you’d lost a year or more . . .
But people say, “Yeah, but I’ve invested a year of my life in that relationship. It can’t fail.” Sweetheart, what happens if it was twenty years? What happens if it was fifty years of your life in a relationship that didn’t do it for you, that wasn’t working? What happens if you kept plugging away in a business that never took off?
Sometimes it’s better to just let the losses go, let the loss of investment, the loss of time, the loss of energy, just go, just bless and release it. And realise that sometimes we just have to. We made choices, or we tried stuff, based on the information that was available at the time. Okay. So forgive yourself, bless and release, do whatever it takes, and move on.
Reason Number Two
Reason number two why failure is fabulous is because the lessons you learn are priceless, truly.
I am the woman I am today because of the experiences I’ve had. It’s simple. If I hadn’t gone through domestic violence, grown up with an alcoholic mum, nearly going bankrupt, failing at business, battles with addictions – if I hadn’t gone through all of that, I wouldn’t be half the woman I am, and I certainly wouldn’t even remotely be the coach that I am now. I’ve coached from all over the world and there’s very little that I hear for the first time. Most times I’ve done it myself. I’ve been through it myself or I’ve coached women that have been through it. But I’m the coach that I am because of all my life experiences. That’s why I’m a life coach. Does that make sense?
So, lessons are priceless. Everything in your life is a lesson or a blessing. Some things are just a blessing straight out. Other things are lessons. And either way you win.
When you look at it as failure, you lose. If you look at it as a lesson that you’ve learned, you win. Which one do you want?
Reason Number Three
Number three. This is my favourite. Life is not a one shot only deal.
What do I mean by that? If you’ve had a failed relationship, that’s not the only relationship you ever get to have. If you failed in business, try again. If you went for promotion, you didn’t get it? Go for the next one. You know, you don’t fail, if you don’t give up. I promise you.
So this isn’t like, “This didn’t succeed and that’s the only chance I’m ever going to have.”
There’s always another chance. There’s always another idea. There’s always another person. There’s always another job. There’s always something else. So, please, please, please understand that. Don’t give up, sweetheart. If you never give up, you’ve never failed.
Reason Number Four
Number four, it builds resilience. People talk about strength. I don’t like strength so much. I like resilience. Strength says, “Big girl pants on, crack on. I see the problem over there. I’m just going to sweep it under the carpet, and it will be okay. I’ll just ignore the problem.” That’s strength, which is fine, and sometimes we do need strength; we need to just deal with the situation at hand. But the problem with strength is it ignores the problems. It doesn’t deal with the problems, and then they pile up. You can imagine: if you kept sweeping everything under the carpet, sooner or later you’re not going to be walking on the carpet.
Resilience is bounce-back-ability, and failure builds that, because if you can bounce back once, you can bounce back twice, you can bounce back three times. You will develop this character that just says, “Okay, I can do this,” and that’s so important. That’s so important.
Reason Number Five
Number five, it realigns you with your goals. So, two things can happen. If you fail at something and you give up and you’re like now, “It wasn’t really for me,” that’s fine. You go and you redo your goals again.
If you fail at something and it hurts so badly, and I mean, like long-term hurt, not ego-bruised, not people-pleasing bruised. Not kind of like, just an inconvenience. I’m talking hurts your soul. That right there is telling you something and maybe you need to try again.
Maybe you just to change direction. Failure just means there’s something that you need to learn, or there’s another direction you need to take. It doesn’t mean lay down and die. That’s not failure. And failures are such a huge important part of success.
Let’s take a female tennis player. Let’s have a look. For example, one of the most famous tennis players of all time, Serena Williams. She has failed so many times and continues to fail, because if you don’t fail at sport, you don’t get better. If you don’t miss that point, how do you know how to improve your serve? If you don’t return the ball properly, how do you know how to get better? You must fail, miss a shot, miss a serve, to be able to improve your game. And it’s the same in whatever you’re looking at in life: sometimes you need to fail. You know what? You can sometimes fail because you weren’t strong enough or skilled enough or experienced or knowledgeable enough to handle whatever that was at the time, but now you might be, so try again. It just means there’s something more to learn.
Reason Number Six
Okay, and number six, probably the most important one, is it trains you to be fearless, if you keep failing, and you understand. Because what is confidence? Confidence is your brain says, “You’ve done it before, you can do it again.” You know that whole thing about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Once you’ve failed a few times at different things, you then learn that it wasn’t the end of you.
I’ve had two failed marriages and I now have a beautiful relationship.
I’ve had a failed business and now my business is amazing and I’m so grateful for it.
Just because you fail doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get stronger and stronger, and it’s that fearlessness that allows you to show up as your true self. We need more women in the world that show up at full strength, at full capacity, as their full selves. I call it standing in your sacred ground. So you shouldn’t shrink back and be small, okay? because when you play small, the universe doesn’t get to see you for who you truly are.
At the same time, don’t puff up. Don’t be like, Bertie Big Whatsits and be full of bravado, because that’s a little bit obnoxious.
But you stand in your sacred ground as your truest self, and that’s what failing repeatedly has allowed you to do. It’s allowed you to stand there. So this is me. I Am Woman . . . Hear me roar.
I hope that helps; I hope that makes sense to you. Don’t be afraid of failing, first and foremost because fear of failure keeps you small. It keeps you afraid of putting yourself out there and nobody needs that from you, okay?
I made a YouTube Video on this post if you would like to watch it that would be fab. Click HERE to go to my channel and would so appreciate it if you subscribed to it too. Thanks! Kate x