“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don’t believe in failure. The word doesn’t have a purpose or meaning in my life.
Everything I do is an experiment: Test. Assess the results. Learn something and take the next step.
School and societal programming have brain-washed us into thinking that failure is bad – something to be avoided at all costs.
Because of this warped thinking, we either strive for impossible perfection or settle with mediocrity because it’s safe and we don’t think we’re up for the perfection thing.
Either way, this leaves us in the land of “not good enough” where dreams and passions are always “out there” while we’re over here, unhappy with ourselves and our lives.
Quit Fooling Yourself
We fool ourselves into thinking that we’re doing something to change this by reading the latest books, blogs, and programs and getting really smart about what we should do next.
Fear of failure or success keeps us in the mode of getting ready to get ready while we’re too scared to take any real action.
We disguise our fears as reasons excuses why we can’t take action. Too old, have a family to support, have a mortgage, not an expert (don’t know enough), already have a career….
We think that taking action has to mean bold, sweeping measures that will suddenly end life as we currently know it in order to create a completely different life.
It doesn’t have to be like that.
Although I did take the plunge and make a huge leap like that fifteen years ago, the subtle actions I take every day these days are equally, if not more, effective in creating change and moving me closer to my dreams.
Fifteen years ago I was in a marriage held together by a thread and that thread thankfully broke when I left my old life to create a new one. I didn’t have kids or a mortgage or many of the things that keep people from taking action.
I did have the security of a great job with great benefits, doing things I enjoyed. But I made the decision to leave it because I couldn’t see myself doing that the rest of my life. I knew there was much more in store for me.
Today I have an amazing husband, three of the world’s most awesome little kids, a big mortgage and a full-time job. All of that should have been plenty for me to tell myself that I didn’t have the time to start a new business. And, at 45, I could be too old too.
But I know that all of that is BS. There’s no rule that says you have to choose between a family and your passions.
You can have your cake and eat it too.
Experience All of Your Options
The next time you’re at a restaurant and can’t decide what you want, order all of the things you want. Taste a little of everything and bring home the leftovers.
Treat your life the same way. Say yes to it all. Experiment to find what really floats your boat and focus on that.
There’s no way to find out what works for you without experiencing it. You can’t figure it out by reading about it or talking to other people. Your experiences will never be the same as theirs.
You have to get out there, take action, see how different things feel to you and take the next step from there.
If you order a dish at a restaurant that ends up tasting like crap, do you sit there and eat the whole thing? I hope not.
It’s the same with your experiences. Try something and, if it sucks, stop doing it and make a different choice. This applies to everything from a pottery class to long-standing careers.
If you’ve spent fifteen years as a lawyer and it’s now sucking the life out of you, stop doing it. Just because you went through law school and spent all this time on a career that no longer supports you does NOT mean that you have to be unhappy doing it the rest of your life.
Cut your losses and move on. In this case, you’re using fifteen years of your past to kill the next forty years of your future.
Moving away from things that no longer serve you does not make you a failure. In my book, it makes you smart.
Making Change More Manageable With a Change of Attitude
If all this change stuff is still too much for you, consider changing your approach and your attitude about the things you do now.
Fifteen years ago I dropped out of Corporate America because I couldn’t see myself doing what I was doing for the rest of my life.
I took a couple years off going to Costa Rica, driving across the country, going to outfitting school, managing a dude ranch, playing with wolves, training horses and managing a herd of horses.
After all that I realized that I wanted to keep pieces of that in my life but I needed to make significantly more money in order to live my life in my own unique way.
So I got a corporate job. This may appear to be backtracking and giving up on my dreams. Quite the contrary. I had a bigger picture, a bigger story for myself and that job was a way to get my dream.
I knew that I couldn’t see my job as drudgery if I was going to be happy. I changed how I interpreted my experience. Instead of thinking of the job as “crunching numbers,” I saw how I could help the people I worked with accomplish their dreams. I felt how I was contributing and making a difference, not only in the company but in people’s lives.
I make it a point to connect with people on a deeper level because I think that’s really what life is about. It’s hard to understand how to contribute without making those connections.
I make these connections in everything I do – my job, my blog and my other interactions with people. Because of this, I find joy in almost everything I do.
Viktor Frankl took this approach when he was subjected to the horrors of living in a concentration camp in World War II. It’s what kept him alive. If it can work in situations like that, imagine what it can do for you in your life.
You Can’t Fail
You’re never trapped.
You always have options.
It’s up to you how subtle or dramatic you want to make changes in your life.
No matter what you do, you can’t fail. Failure is a faulty concept that doesn’t serve anyone.
Failure is making the choice to stop experimenting in life because you’re not meeting someone else’s expectations.
Failure is a way for someone else to instill enough fear in you to keep you from making the changes that they’re afraid you’ll make. If you make those changes, the other person will feel threatened. Whose life are you living?
Play. Experiment. Order the whole menu and see what you like the best. You’ll never know until you try.
Create the life you want: Combine the law of attraction with mindfulness
The law of attraction suggests that our positive or negative thoughts bring about positive or negative experiences. My latest book, The Mindful Guide to Law of Attraction, pairs that belief with the powerful practices of mindfulness. Through intentional breathing, writing, and engaging, you’ll hone a method for manifesting health, wealth, and love―the elements of happiness.
Let the law of attraction work for you by adopting its basic steps of identifying and visualizing the things you desire. Then use 45 practical meditation techniques included in the book to achieve awareness. By concentrating your positive energy on obtaining your wants, you’ll give yourself permission to receive them.
To your happiness! ~Paige
You can find this book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Indigo.
The Mindful Living Guide
Thanks so much Paige – if that’s ok to call you by your first name. Your advise is a very good start & empowerment choice. I will be consistence in every area of my life is my new hope. I will make small step in joy and ease, and delight in the moment of power they bring to me within. I live a charmed life.
That’s a great way to approach life, Emma. I just received an email from a reader who recently reflected on how far she has come in a certain area of her life and she amazed herself. Lasting change only comes in baby steps. Because the progress can be slow, sometimes we can’t see it, but it’s always there. Attitude is everything! Hugs!!
Good morning: Thank you, as I read your words, I feel so many things inside. Mostly she is so on point about things going inside my mind, heart & soul. It’s like I forgot myself and how to live my life. It brings me tears – yet I am tired of crying, so now I feel this anger. I feel stupid and simple minded. I want to change this world I created. I want my dream to come true for me. I want to see me act on my choices more. I feel so stuck like bright lights are in my eyes. Help me to get out of my own way. How do I do that? Where do I even find the strength?
Emma – I know how you feel. Don’t think about taking giant leaps. Think about what you can do right now to start to shift yourself in a different direction. Take a tiny baby step. Don’t worry about if it’s right or wrong. Simply different is a good start. Once you start moving, it becomes easier to shift into different directions.
What can you do in the next five minutes to act on one of your choices? Go do that right now!
I really enjoyed reading this. Particularly I love the fact that your writing style – your voice – is flowing and conversational. More Mindfulness writers could stand to follow your lead.
I have always considered “failure” to be a product of Goal-oriented thinking, not Journey-oriented thinking. Most, if not all, of my “failures” in life came when I did not arrive at a goal in exactly the way I wanted.
I had a sort of Acceptable Outcome expectation about jobs or relationships or whatever. When I didn’t meet my preset expectations, I was disappointed in myself for failing, rather than having any satisfaction in all the good things I actually achieved.
Like a gymnast that performs well but doesn’t “stick the landing,” it was as if the journey in life didn’t matter if I didn’t end up where and how I expected.
By focusing on the goal, even if I arrived where I meant to, in marriage or a certain job, I would have to set out to conquor another goal or wither away. And I still would have missed all the beautiful scenery I passed along the way.
Life’s a journey. Don’t be so quick to reach the end that you forget to look out the window along the way.
Keep up the encouraging writing.
Wow! You summed this up beautifully David! I’ve come to realize that unmet expectations set by you and others for yourself and others is one of the biggest sources of stress, anxiety and pain. It definitely takes our focus off the fun journey and onto the unrelenting series of goals and destinations that can never be fully met.
I’m starting to catch myself when I start to get all stressed about deadlines or other arbitrary expectations I’ve created for myself. I take a few deep breaths and remind myself that, frequently, no one else in the world has any knowledge of my “deadlines” and nothing in life would change if I didn’t meet them. Then I slow down and focus on one thing in front of me instead of doing the dreaded multi-tasking that only increases stress levels. This way I tend to accomplish more and am much happier along the way. Even if I miss deadlines/expectations set by others, the world doesn’t end. We just change course and enjoy the new path.
Love your comment David! Thank you!
Great advice Paige! You are such a great example to the rest of us!! I need to read Viktor Frankl’s book. Always love hearing what you have to say!
xoxo
Betsy
Thanks so much Betsy! Experimenting with life is a lot more fun than running through life fearing failure.
Sometimes I feel like I could start all of my posts with a Viktor Frankl quote.
Big Hugs!!
Well said, Paige! About faces in life are part of the process of correcting for all our little moments when we’re off course, flying into the mountains. That’s all failure is. We’re off course. So we adjust. Turn around. Try again. Change where it is we want to go.
I think failure is the process of doing one of two things.
1. Giving up … on dreams, hope, others, self.
2. Continuing to act or think in self-defeating ways without ever learning anything in or from the process. While maybe not a grand failure, that kind of acting/thinking is itself a sort of failed way of learning and growing. It’s a stagnant life without becoming something a little better than yesterday.
Neither of these are permanent, of course, but continue to produce their bitter fruit unless and until we see what we’re doing and turn the “failures” into moments of self-discovery and personal growth.
This is perfect Ken! Thank you! It’s like the analogy of a plane on auto-pilot: it’s actually off course about 90% of the time, constantly correcting itself.
I agree with your definitions of failure. These are basically choosing to not act. As long as we persevere, act and learn something, failure is impossible.
The shortest legal job I had was one month. On the first day of work, I knew I had made a big mistake. I redid my resume right away. It took me two weeks to find another job, and I gave them two weeks notice. When people were dumbfounded about why I left such a top firm so abruptly, all I could say was that it wasn’t right for me. So I get exactly what you are saying!
Galen,
I love that you weren’t persuaded by the people around you asking why you would leave such a “good job.” It’s amazing what people will put up with because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do or that, if they stick with it long enough, it can somehow later make them happy. Both of these end in unhappiness.
You were very wise to follow your heart and move to something that was better for YOU. There’s no rule about how long you have to give anything. If it isn’t working for you, change it!
This is so powerful and timely:
“Try something and, if it sucks, stop doing it and make a different choice.”
Sometimes what one is hanging on to is a bit more insidious.. when something doesn’t specifically “suck” but for some reason you just don’t feel inspired to do it anymore. It was good for a time, but that time is over. Time to make room for the new passions. 🙂
You’ve made a great point, Dora, in how effective mindfulness can be in this area. Without it, we can continue to do things we don’t want to do because they aren’t painful enough to raise our awareness that something needs to change. It’s that dangerous phase of being comfortably uncomfortable – never happy but never unhappy enough to act differently. With mindfulness we can become more aware of that state and make a new choice.
Thanks so much!
Your statement “I make it a point to connect with people on a deeper level…” reminded me of “Trust people to pay for music: Amanda Palmer at TED2013”. She told how her experience connecting with people as a street performer in the past affects her business today. It’s good to see that your themes are widely repeated and confirmed.
When you put yourself in a situation where you feel the importance of connecting with people as individuals instead of roles and titles, you begin to see the glow in people’s eyes and the true person inside. When you can see that, it’s hard not to connect.
Now I’m off to check out Amanda’s talk! Thanks for mentioning it here!
Love this–especially the concept that you don’t fail, you experiment, test, evaluate, and learn from the results. I never thought of applying the scientific method to my life, but it sure works!
Exactly! Life becomes much more fun and challenges become opportunities when you view life as an experiment rather than something to “get right” (what is “right” anyway and who decided it for you?). Everything about every person is different and should be respected as such. No one should be expected to follow in someone else’s tracks and labeled a failure if they don’t.
Gosh I love this..each sentence is my favorite! Having been raised in abuse, I used to have the mindset that I could see other’s experiences as amazing, but look into my own life and see the one step I *didn’t take* instead of the gazillion I did. Having re-re-trained my thoughts, I truly believe and practice that failure isn’t possible. There is resonance and more resonance (or an experience, and a freakin’ rock your world, magic experience). The quality depends upon my willingness to fully vest and enjoy it, or not.
The biggest change in my life was learning that if I absolutely didn’t like something, to stop vesting in it. I was raised to think that was quitting, now I know that is discernment. I wouldn’t eat a plate of dog-poo, yet I would ingest sh** in many other ways (connections that drained was a big one for me). Thank you for this affirmation! As I said above, I love it, it’s a gift for today!
Thanks so much Joy! I love how you say that not doing something that doesn’t serve you isn’t giving up, it’s discernment. Absolutely!
I completely agree that the quality of your experiences depends on your willingness to fully vest. Your attitude toward your experiences is what defines each experience for you. For example, I could wake up feeling awful every day thinking about my 2 hour commute to work and having to be in an office all day. Instead, I can’t wait to see how the sunrise will hit the clouds and paint an amazing picture across the sky that I get to enjoy during my drive (I just posted some of my views to Facebook). I learn all kinds of amazing things listening to podcasts and audiobooks. At work I’m helping people live a happier life in little ways that I serve the people I work with and bigger ways that I help the organization which helps our clients (primarily people needing mental health services who can’t afford it).
You’ve made some amazing transformations Joy!