Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Don’t fear failure. Fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today. Unknown

This morning at five o’clock I got back into bed for another hour. I could afford to do that because it’s my hour to journal and read.  This is what we do, we give up our time. We do the things that need to be done for our jobs, our families, but for ourselves we let them slide.

Sometimes we have to let them slide or we will seem too selfish and self-involved. Other times we put ourselves last on the list for what reason? We sabotage ourselves, stand in our own way, procrastinate or continue self-defeating behavior which interferes with achieving our aims and goals. Why do we do this?

Do we feel undeserving of success and happiness? Does our chance at success start to interfere with our belief about ourselves? Do we feel people who are successful and rich are in the bad camp? We may not even understand we don’t want to be in the bad camp so we sabotage ourselves if our lives look like they are going too good and success may be in reach? We are in conflict with ourselves they call this cognitive dissonance it feels bad to fail, but it feels even worse to succeed.

We might feel our life will spin out of control. What if we can’t handle all that success, but instead of finding out and making decisions along the way we sabotage ourselves. If we can’t go to every book signing we can deal with that, but only if we finish the book.

We may feel like a fraud or an imposter. Who are we to write a book, run a big successful company, or be the headliner fans are coming to see? Feeling like a fraud can easily lead to procrastination and diversion.

It’s hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt

We may want an excuse for failure that isn’t we did our best and still failed. We didn’t do our best and we failed and somehow we like that better than giving our all and facing failure. Facing failure is one of the things we need to do in life and if we can fail bigger, and fail better we may even feel we’ve earned success.

We are familiar with our lives, our friends, our place in the community and family. What if we lost our place in the hierarchy of our lives? Even if we don’t love our place its familiar, comfortable, and reassuring. We need to get out of our comfort zone and get comfortable with being uncomfortable if we want to deal with new and different experiences, challenges, and levels of success.

We can self-sabotage out of boredom. Life is a little too comfortable so we’ll pick a fight that gives us a rush of drama. It may also get us closer to divorce or not speaking to members of the family at functions. If we need excitement in our lives there must be a better way to do it. White water rafting, bungee jumping, zip-lining, public speaking, or a team sport can bring excitement into our lives so we don’t have to fight with those we love to ease the boredom.

Is the root of all of this fear of failure? Why do we fear failure when we know in order to face success we must face failure? Fail bigger, fail better, we know this but still, we turn on the TV instead of writing and turn off our alarm and go back to sleep. We may never be perfect but if we write more than we turn on the TV we’ll get somewhere. Isn’t slow progress still progress? Can taking it slow help us to grow into who we want to be or who we are to become?

 A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert Einstein

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. Paulo Coelho

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Win at Losing: How Our Biggest Setbacks Can Lead to Our Greatest Gains Hardcover – Dec 20 2016

by Sam Weinman (Author) 4.7 out of 5 stars 33 ratings

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