How to Succeed

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 128

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Many of us want to know how to succeed, and many of us think that the way to succeed is to avoid failure.

I don't think we think of it quite so clearly to ourselves in that manner, but quite often, when we think of a big goal or something that we want to do, we think of a lot of avoiding getting it wrong. And from my experience, and having worked hard at some huge goals in a very strategic, thought-based, emotion-driven way, and have achieved some things which were really, really out of my reach, what I've come to realise is that I was wasting a huge amount of energy trying to avoid getting things wrong, when actually what I needed to do was to run at the idea of getting things wrong. Not for the idea of sabotage, but quite simply because I need to learn everything that I need to not be doing along the way, in order to make my successes.

We're going to need to mess up a huge amount of times. We're going to need to collect a load of failures along the way if we're going to get to somewhere that we haven't been before. It's how we learn and stretch and grow into new things.

I'm sure that lots of you have heard the analogy of imagining a kid who was learning how to walk, you know, if they gave up after two or three times or even the first time they fell over and was just like, oh well, I can't do this anymore, I'm obviously not designed for it, I'm not cut out for it. And I think we kind of stop and, and leave that obvious analogy there and miss a. A bigger point that is, is in that little vision which is that a baby doesn't know know how to walk when it's first tumbling and, and toddling around. It's that actually in the falling over and the strength that it builds in its legs and its arm muscles pushing itself back up again when it falls over. That means that it develops the muscles that it needs to hold its structure in place actually to develop into a way where it can walk.

And my lovely person listening to this, you did that, you did that when you were a we. And no matter what your stage of mobility is now, at some point you were doing an awful lot of wriggling around, trying to get up onto two pins, falling back over and pushing yourself back up again. So at least we know we have done this stuff before. This is not new territory this is something which we are all capable of. It's just the older we get, the more risk averse we get and the more we start meaning we start making not getting things right mean something about us. Quite often because we're so busy telling ourselves the rest of the time that we're not getting things right that it mashes into all of the other self-criticism that we have going on.

But what if the aim of the game was not to get things right all the time or even to get to your goal or the thing that you're working towards? What if the aim of the game aimed to try and get as many failures as you can under your belt because those are the things that are going to strengthen, strengthen you and give you the stuff that you need for the rest of your life onwards, well beyond the goal or well beyond whatever you're working towards now?

What if actually trying to avoid failure, avoid getting things wrong, is wasting precisely the amount of energy that you need to be able to meet the thing that you're aiming at to be able to get to the place that you want to go to. What if actually getting your dream come true or your goal wasn't the aim at all? What if learning all the stuff along the way that means that you have to grow into, to transform, to radiate being the kind of person that can achieve the thing that you're working towards? What if that was the prize at the end of it all and the goal or the dream or whatever you're working towards happens to be a byproduct of all of those lessons on the way?

From there, the thing that you're working towards becomes a stepping stone towards soaring you more into a direction that you want to be heading into. What if failures are all part of the journey and not to be avoided?

Everything that you ever dreamed of, everything that you ever want is the other side of feeling some discomfort. I dare you to get a little bit willing to feel some of the ickiness, the discomfort, the things around you that make you go not yet, not here, not now, and just see what could be possible for you if you believe that there were lessons along the way that are taking you exactly to where you need to be.

I look forward to hearing all of your successes. Do drop me an email, let me know them. Come visit me on Instagram. It's way more fun than newsletters or emails. And I do have a brilliant, brilliant newsletter list which goes out every Sunday, gives you tips, tricks and frankly I try and write from my soul every week and put a little bit of heart in there into your inbox. So if you have a look at the show notes or the link in my bio, wherever you're listening to this, you should be able to sign up and I quite often send out lovely new free workbooks. You get all of the offers first. And quite often I offer discount codes and links to other free things and resources that are all around the place. And that comes into your inbox. All the stuff is there.

So be willing to get things wrong. Then you get just slightly less uncomfortable at things like asking for things like, you know, do you want to join my email list? Do you want to leave me a nice podcast review, that kind of thing? It's not pleasant, but I know that it's all going in the right direction because the more that I'm able to offer this stuff out to people and the more that hopefully the people who near it need it, the one person who could really do with some extra support today is going to realise that today is the day that they're willing to ask for some extra support and we can work on this stuff together.

I'll speak to you next week.