Failure is inevitable. Everyone fails at something and it’s never easy. Even though failure seems like a bad thing, you can reframe your thoughts and use your failures to your advantage. I’ve spent years of my life not doing things I’ve wanted to do because I was afraid of failing. Not trying is a counterproductive form of failure in and of itself. If you try hard enough, you can turn any failure into a success simply by reframing your negative thoughts around failure into positive and productive thoughts. You can look at anything in your life and assign failure to it if you are approaching life with a scarcity mindset. You must approach life (including failures) with an abundance mindset. An abundant mindset changes everything. A great example of this on a micro level is something my cognitive behavioral therapist used to say to me when I would say “I’ve done nothing all day”.  My therapist would respond with a series of questions; “did you get out of bed today?” I would respond, “yes”. “Did you brush your teeth, take a shower, put on clothes, eat breakfast, drive to your appointment etc.”? I would answer “yes”. Perspective is powerful and unfortunately a lot of us live our lives from a negative perspective. I have failed at a lot of things and until very recently, I’ve allowed failure to define parts of my life. I’ve realized that failure is only negative if you do not learn something from it and put what you learned into action. Failure can show us where our weaknesses lie and can help change the trajectory of whatever it is we are trying to accomplish. We are never going to be perfect, so there is always an opportunity to learn from our failures. Looking at failures as learning opportunities will set you ahead of the curve and make progression and fine tuning possible.

Here are some examples of how I have failed in the past and what I did to improve/ rectify those failures:

1.    I am very socially anxious. It is hard for me to make new friends. I am very shy at first and it makes people uncomfortable. When I was in my early twenties, I worked at a big law firm in Chicago. I was intimidated to meet people in the office. I tried to introduce myself to people, but I would get tongue tied and flustered. You could say I was a social failure. Instead of hiding in my cubicle with my headphones on, I went to Walgreens and bought a ton of candy. I took the candy back to the office and filled an entire drawer in my desk with candy and left it open. People started coming up to my desk, introducing themselves and asking for candy. I met everyone in my department that day. There is something nostalgic about candy and people love to talk about it. You could say I was “buying” friendships, but it worked and is a much more positive outcome than being a loner.

2.    I went to art school to become a famous artist. I suffered from mental illness that made that dream impossible. I’ve watched some of my friends go on to be very successful, and very famous artists. It is hard because I know in my heart, I am supposed to be an artist. For the longest time after I graduated, I stopped making art all together because I repeated the narrative “you are not talented, if you haven’t made your career happen yet, you might as well give up” repeatedly. I finally decided to start painting again. I told myself it didn’t matter if none of them ever sold, I was going to keep painting because that is what I wanted to do. I am still painting to this day. I am still not a famous artist, but it doesn’t matter because I am showing up for myself every time I go to my studio. I hosted recently hosted a show and no one (except for my parents, husband and best friend) showed up. At first, I was really embarrassed. But then I thought that I just needed to market myself differently. I started thinking of ways to market myself and how to get the word out. I gave myself a moment to feel sorry for myself, and then immediately started thinking about how I could fix this failure. Some of the things I thought of were getting more social media savvy and sending letters to my parents’ friends on postcards with pictures of the art on the cards personally inviting them to the show. Another thing I thought about was having my next show on a weeknight, all my friends are in the service industry so taking a Friday night off is out of the question for them.

3.    In 2016, I got fired from a law firm job. I had never been fired before. It was a surreal experience. I was so embarrassed. I learned a lot from the experience. First, the job was initially presented to me as a position no one wanted because the boss was so difficult to work with. I should have believed that and declined the offer. I learned that its ok to ask questions during interviews and that you do not have to accept a job just because it’s offered to you. I would have saved myself a year of frustration if I had done a little more research about the law firm and the job itself.

4.    Failure can also help us realized that we are not doing everything possible to make a goal/dream become a reality. You can’t make something happen by just wanting it to happen, you must work hard. For the longest time I thought I was a failed artist. I was making art maybe once a week and not doing anything to market myself. I thought wanting something was enough. If you want something, you must make it a top priority and treat it like a job. I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but Steven Pressfield says the difference between a pro and an amateur is pros work every day no matter what. If something is important to you, work on it tirelessly.  I think a lot of people (including myself) get down on themselves because they haven’t “made it” or that they aren’t talented because they didn’t achieve fame and fortune overnight. Nothing valuable happens overnight. Social media gives us a warped timeline of success because we see people getting Instagram famous seemingly overnight. What we don’t see is the years of making content and the chaos that goes on outside of the camera.

I know failure can be frustrating, but don’t let it get you down. Learning from failure will set you a part and help you achieve your goals. Use every failure as a learning opportunity and see how the trajectory of your life changes.