Success and Failure: What is Your View?
Tiles spelling out - Transform Wounds into Wisdom
For most people, success and failure conjure up some pretty specific images of what each is to them. Chances are these images have many influences on how they were created over time. Family may have helped craft these definitions and images. Culture and society may have some strong influence. Life experiences may also have something to say. And this list could continue, as there are many potential influences on how we define success and failure. Once we internalize these influences, they feel like they become part of us. Some much so that more often than not, we can’t tell what is actually ours and what we internalized from other sources.
Now that we have our definitions and images of success and failure, we add a few other elements and concepts into the mix. The first is our own internal critic or self-judgment when we feel that we have met our definition of failure. This piece of us beats us up, berates us, and reminds us that we didn’t reach our definition of success. So now, with an element of judgment coming into play, we not only compound how we feel, but we miss the opportunity to invite in self-compassion. The next element that comes into play is a skewed perspective. We all have our perspectives. One person’s might be more like rose-colored glasses while another one person’s might look like blue-colored glasses. These different perspectives have also been shaped over time by experiences and outside influences. We essentially don’t have a clear view of success and failure and how we look at them. Now we have judgment and lack a clear view of intervening in our experiences of success and failure.
There are two more elements and concepts that need to be covered. Before we cover them, please don’t despair! To find our way to the other side, we need to uncover all of these elements so that we can work with them. There is always hope! Our next concept is that of fear, specifically the fear of being judged as a failure or worthless. Fear can be paralyzing, blinding, and cause us to leave our frontal lobe and dive directly into our brain stem to find survival mode. When we are in survival mode, we aren’t thinking clearly. We are focused on survival and protection. While fear and survival mode serves a purpose, this is not the time to let fear drive our actions, but it can happen. Finally, many of us can’t stand feeling vulnerable. It can be one of the scariest places that has also been shaped by many voices and experiences. When we lose our willingness to be vulnerable, we lose our ability to be genuine and authentic and honor that we are not perfect beings.
Now that we have unearthed some of these elements and concepts that join the mix when we examine success and failure, we don’t find hopelessness! What we find is a path to redefining success and failure to be less rigid and more fluid to the point where we can see that failure is not necessarily a bad thing, and success is not perfection, for example. Our path asks us to invite self-compassion and our inner witness, be open to vulnerability, and to not allow fear to rule.
Now that we know that there are layers and ways to address them, it is time to take action. Here are a few other key ideas to keep in mind. Failure can be success from a different perspective because we have learned something. Success doesn’t have to be big and loud. It can be quiet and gentle. Success doesn’t have to be defined by society. You can define it. And finally, fail often. Sometimes with failure, we fail in the service of learning.
take action today moment:
Now it is time for you to begin your journey of self-reflection. Begin by thinking of your definition of success and failure and writing it down. Now what influences have there been in the creation of your definitions? Once you have completed your definitions, review a success and failure in your life and write down what went through your mind and body during the process of both. See if you can identify where some of the discussed elements and concepts come up for you. Then look for ways that you can instead invite self-compassion, your inner witness, be open to vulnerability, and to not allow fear to rule. See below for some additional reading on some of these concepts.
Have faith in yourself! You have the skills for this exploration!