I have a confession to make: in working with my coach this year, I discovered that I had been holding on to my perfectionism like it was my teddy bear. It was my lovie that I clung to whenever it came time to set big goals, take a risk and try new things. And retreating to my couch to snuggle my perfectionism lovie was keeping me from stepping into the calling God has put in my heart.
My fear of failure and what I was making failing mean about me as a person was keeping me playing small and not fully pressing into my calling.
How about you?
- Do you hate failing?
- Do you ever make missing a deadline, goal, or projection mean you ARE a failure and are never going to succeed?
- Do you worry about what other people think about you when you mess up or miss a deadline or a goal?
If you find yourself asking questions like:
- How can I get past this paralyzing fear of failure?
- What’s wrong with me? Other people don’t seem to struggle /get paralyzed by this fear of failure.
And if you are regularly find yourself:
- Stuck circling the same issues and projects without actually making forward progress.
- Playing small and not making the kind of impact you feel called to make.
- If you consistently let little failures lead to little quits that stop you from even attempting the big stuff…
Then my friend, lean in and listen up. We are about to rock your world and transform your experience of failure. You, my fellow recovering perfectionist, are about to make peace with the experience of failure.
ABOUT THESE SHOW NOTES
I know there may be times when you would prefer to read the content rather than listen. So, I’ve provided this text version of the podcast. It is not an exact transcript but it provides you the essentials from the audio.
Path to Making Peace with Failure
You were not always a perfectionist paralyzed by a fear of failure.
If you were a toddler who learned to walk and a kid who learned to ride a bike, you had a healthy relationship with failure at one time.
You became the current version of your perfectionistic self because of what you started making failure mean.
And somewhere along the line, your thinking about failure and what it means about who you are and what you are capable of became a habitual thinking pattern. Your brain delegated that issue to the lower, unconscious part of your brain. So now it just feels like who you are instead of what you think.
But because we know that every feeling we experience is created by the thoughts we think, we know that this feeling of fear, specifically the fear of failing, is created by our minds thinking thoughts.
This means we can change our thinking and create a different feeling, which will drive new actions and therefore give us different results than what we have created from our current thinking patterns.
The first step on our path to making peace with failure is to…
Reframe What Failure Means
When I make missing a deadline mean I AM a failure, I imbue that action that I messed up on with way more significance than what it deserves.
On the other hand, I can make missing my deadline for example, mean I just didn’t publish my podcast on the date I had scheduled it to be published. If I choose this thought, I take all the drama out of the event. The world keeps spinning and I can still publish the podcast when I get it ready and get it out in the world.
That is exactly what happened with this podcast. I had several unexpected things pop up this week. Things I wanted to prioritize over sticking to my publishing schedule.
I made a conscious, intentional choice to take care of some stuff for my son, and to take some time off to spend with a dear friend who was in town for a college visit with her son.
I don’t take missing deadlines lightly, but I also don’t have to make it mean I’m a failure.
Failure is just not hitting a target. To fail is to simply be unsuccessful in the performance or completion of an action at the expected or desired level or within the expected or desired time frame.
That’s it. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It means you just didn’t get an something done in a specific time frame or to a specific level.
What We Do If We Inflate What Failure Means
If we attach more significance to failing to get something done at the level we wanted to or by the time we wanted to, we will need to protect ourselves from failure.
If I think missing the deadline on a podcast episode is a reflection of my ability to do a podcast, then I will begin to fear doing every episode of the podcast.
And fear is an emotion that drives us to circle the wagons and retreat.
So I will start scaling back on the publishing schedule. Instead of publishing weekly, I might decide to only publish monthly. Then if I miss that deadline, I will be tempted to quit altogether. Who does that serve? Nobody!
Letting failure mean more than it actually means will paint myself into a corner of showing up smaller and smaller.
And that is what our enemy thrives on. Satan is the father of lies. He loves it when we lie to ourselves about what failure means because it keeps us from living out our calling. It keeps us playing small and not making the impact God has called and equipped each one of us to make.
So if you reframe what failure means, you will take away a lot of its power over you.
And this next concept I’m going to share with you will help you slip free from its grip altogether.
Digging Up the Root Cause of Fear of Failure
My coach and the coaching skills I’ve been learning in coach certification have given me the tools to uncover the root cause of my fear of failure.
Want to get down to the root of your relationship with failure? Ask questions like:
- Why are you avoiding failing?
- If failure just means you didn’t get something done in a specific time frame or to a specific level, then why are you so afraid of experiencing that?
When we ask ourselves those kind of questions we will eventually get to the point where we realize what we really fear is the emotion we will feel when we miss the deadline or expected outcome.
But here is the kicker: you only feel what you feel because of what you think.
I set out to publish a podcast every week on Thursday. Actually, my goal is to finish everything that goes into publishing the episode by end of day Wednesday so it can go live early Thursday morning.
But when I miss that expectation and don’t get the podcast out until, like this one, on Saturday, I get to decide what I’m going to think about that circumstance.
I can think about it in a way that is discouraging or I can think about it in a way that is empowering.
I can tell myself, “You blew it. Why do you even try to do this podcasting thing?” which will leave me feeling discouraged and not wanting to get back on horse and try again.
Or
I can choose to think something like, “God will use the timing of this podcast in just the right way for my listeners.” or “I’m proud of you for persevering and getting this episode out.”
When I think thoughts like that, I get excited to start on my next episode.
What I want you to see is that the whole reason those of us who are perfectionists play small and safe is because we are avoiding something over which we have total control. Isn’t that crazy?
And no, it isn’t the outcome of our efforts. We won’t always be able to control the outcome. We are afraid of the feeling we are going to feel. And that’s ridiculous because we can totally control what we feel, regardless of the outcome.
We act like the emotion we experience is happening to us. But what we experience when we fail, that emotion that feels so horrible, that is totally within our control.
How you manage your mind when you fail makes all the difference in how you will show up in your life.
Transform Your Experience of Failure
So start with reminding yourself what failure actually means. To fail is simply to be unsuccessful in the performance or completion of an action at the expected or desired level or within the expected or desired time frame.
Skip the drama. Refuse to pile on significance beyond the facts.
My deadline was Wednesday at 5 pm.
I ended up publishing this Saturday at 3 pm.
When I look at the facts and notice the thoughts that come up about those facts it puts me in the driver seat. That’s what I want you to do with your failure.
Look at the facts. Observe the thoughts that come up about those facts. Do those thoughts create emotions that drive actions that create a result that serves you?
I can think, “Great. I got that episode out and I believe it will help someone who listens to it. The only reason I missed my deadline this week is because of how I chose to spend my time this past week. To finish by 5 pm this Wednesday, I just need to plan my time differently.”
When I think about it like that, I feel good about myself. I know the reasons I made the decisions about how I spent my time this week were ones I stand behind. I’ve got my own back on that. So no reason to beat myself up or make it mean anything going forward.
I am in full control of what feeling I feel and therefore how I experience this failure to meet my deadline.
Failure has no power to make you feel anything. Only your mind can create your emotions. So there is zero reason to fear failure.
WHY IT MATTERS
We succeed by learning and growing. And to learn and grow we have to try things that we don’t know how to do yet. And that means we will rack up some failures as we are mastering the knowledge and skills required to achieve success.
If we are willing to embrace failure as the means of growing into the successful person we want to become, we will not shrink back. We will refuse to be overwhelmed, confused, and mired in procrastination or fear.
We will be willing to try, knowing we will not doing it perfectly right out of the gate. And knowing that when we do miss the target we will have our own back.
We will learn from the experience but we will refuse to beat ourselves up and refuse to engage in thoughts that create negative emotions. We will instead harvest the valuable data this failure contains and move forward.
Henry Ford had the right idea about failure. He said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
The essential element in transforming your experience of failure is how you decide to think about not succeeding.
You decide ahead of time to think thoughts that honor your effort and relate to yourself with compassion and respect. Having this kind of grace toward yourself insures you will feel useful emotions. Grace-fueled thoughts create emotions that drive you to take useful actions such as reviewing the data, finding the lessons and areas in which you could do things better next time, you will be more creative and see opportunities and solutions you would never see when you are busy beating yourself up.
Knowing that you are going into your endeavor with this mindset and this kind of relationship with yourself will make you want to lean into the discomfort of trying something new, moving outside your comfort zone of already mastered skills.
Having your own back and a proper perspective on what failure to hit your target means will let you show up bigger. You’ll be willing to put yourself out there in ways you never would have before.
And not only will your skills and knowledge grow, but you as a person will grow into more and more of who God is creating you to be.
So, what are you going to be willing to fail at this week on your way to becoming who God is creating you to be so you can accomplish what He is calling you to do?
4 Liberating Principles from Jesus’ Response to Peter’s Failure
Devotional Cheat Sheet and Podcast Episode
I’ve got a devotional guide and related podcast episode that will help you process this topic of transforming your experience of failure. Both explore Peter’s repeated failure to acknowledge Jesus during Jesus’ trial. Jesus is able to restore Peter and get him back on track, moving forward in living out his calling because Jesus related to Peter with love and grace. Click here or the image below to grab your copy of this devotional cheat sheet outlining the four biblical principles of failing forward. And click here to listen to the accompanying podcast episode (episode 10) to get an expanded discussion of the principles and how you can apply them in your own life.
Next Week on the podcast:
how to press on no matter what
Next week, we’ll be wrapping up Season 5 and our focus on keeping our New Year’s Resolutions. Our topic will be how to keep pressing on no matter what. Listen to next week’s episode. And be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss it!
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The Coach’s Corner
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