11/4/2017 0 Comments Fail: First Attempt in LearningAfter spending the majority of my childhood and adult life seeking perfection, it dawned on me one day that there is no such thing. This realization essentially meant that the entire last two decades of my life have been spent holding myself to some unattainable standard that doesn’t even exist! As I dug a little deeper, it was easy to see how this happened. If you look at our mainstream culture today, we have done a really nice job of mass messaging the “success stories” in society – whether it is on the cover of the latest Vogue or Cosmo, on TMZ with the latest celebrity drama, or the best-selling movie blockbuster of the year, we are constantly and consistently bombarded with messages about the handful of people in America who have been able to reach superstar status. This leaves the rest of us, the hardworking ones that are just doing the best they can with the information they have, feeling defeated and exhausted, like failures. The thing is, what we don’t see behind every one of these success stories, are the many times it didn’t work out for them. We don’t see the number of failed business ventures, the thousands of hours of tedious practice, the heartbreak when critics have betrayed them. We don’t see the defeat, the struggle, the tears of having to get back up and keep trying and trying, day after day. We don’t see the painful rejection, the number of times they performed, sent their manuscript, tried to sell their paintings, only to be hit time and time again with a NO. We only see the positive sides of success, and we don’t receive glimpses into how they handle the tougher moments. This leaves the rest of us, when we compare ourselves to this unattainable standard of success, feeling stuck. We feel so overwhelmed by how big we have to become to even make our mark in the world, we feel like it isn’t even worth trying. So instead, we act like we don’t care that much about the dream we really want to chase after, when deep down, we know we do care. We care a lot. So what do we do instead? We rationalize it away, saying it is easier to take the “safe route” of having a steady job with stable income instead of going out there and giving what we really want to do a chance. We become too comfortable to risk taking the bold moves of the first, small steps. We distract ourselves with alcohol, relationships, hobbies, and over time we find ourselves too far down the path of our comfortable lifestyles that it seems too late to try. While we are busy comparing ourselves to these unattainable, perfectionist standards, what we are really ignoring and are really afraid of is the potential pain that we may have to endure if we actually did try. We are avoiding the possibility of the negative experience of being rejected, laughed at, and ridiculed, if we were to throw ourselves out there. We assume that if can’t be the best in the world, then we shouldn’t bother trying. We dangerously compare ourselves to the famous, and we talk ourselves out of even giving it a shot, saying we are too old, too tired, too busy, too whatever. We rationalize trying away by saying that we are waiting for the motivation to come before we take the first action, when in reality, the motivation comes after the action. So what do we do about it? We have to spend time questioning our expectations for ourselves and what we are measuring our success next to. We can’t all be the next Oprah or JK Rowling. We have to get comfortable with the reality that we may take a chance, throw ourselves out there, and still get ridiculed, laughed at, and rejected. We have to come to grips with realizing that all of this potential pain is still worth it. It is worth doing even if we fail. Those moments when we know and accept that we may get rejected and we take action anyway, are often the moments that most define the course of our lives. Now, I’d love to hear from YOU! What are you not doing because you are too afraid to fail? What is worth doing even if you fail?
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