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<blockquote><p><em>“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson</em></p></blockquote>
<p>I don’t believe in failure. The word doesn’t have a purpose or meaning in my life.</p>
<p>Everything I do is an experiment: Test. Assess the results. Learn something and take the next step.</p>
<p>School and societal programming have brain-washed us into thinking that failure is bad – something to be avoided at all costs.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Either way, this leaves us in the land of “<a title="How To Be Enough" href="https://www.simplemindfulness.com/how-to-be-enough/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not good enough</a>” where dreams and passions are always “out there” while we’re over here, unhappy with ourselves and our lives.</p>
<h2>Quit Fooling Yourself</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We disguise our fears as <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">reasons</span> 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….</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be like that.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>You can have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<h2>Experience All of Your Options</h2>
<p>The next time you’re at a restaurant and can’t decide what you want, order <em>all</em> of the things you want. Taste a little of everything and bring home the leftovers.</p>
<p>Treat your life the same way. Say yes to it all. Experiment to find what really floats your boat and focus on that.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>You have to get out there, take action, see how different things feel to you and take the next step from there.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It’s the same with your experiences. Try something and, <a title="If It’s Broken, Fix It – Right Now" href="https://www.simplemindfulness.com/if-its-broken-fix-it-right-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">if it sucks, stop doing it</a> and make a different choice. This applies to everything from a pottery class to long-standing careers.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Cut your losses and move on. In this case, you’re using <a title="Are You Letting Your Past Dictate Your Future (To Your Detriment)?" href="https://www.simplemindfulness.com/you-now-have-permission-to-waste-your-prior-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fifteen years of your past to kill</a> the next <em>forty </em> years of your future.</p>
<p>Moving away from things that no longer serve you does <em>not</em> make you a failure. In my book, it makes you smart.</p>
<h2>Making Change More Manageable With a Change of Attitude</h2>
<p>If all this change stuff is still too much for you, consider changing your approach and your attitude about the things you do now.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><a title="Viktor Frankl (Wikipedia)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Viktor Frankl</a> 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.</p>
<h2>You Can’t Fail</h2>
<p>You’re never trapped.</p>
<p>You <em>always</em> have options.</p>
<p>It’s up to you how subtle or dramatic you want to make changes in your life.</p>
<p>No matter what you do, you can’t fail. Failure is a faulty concept that doesn’t serve anyone.</p>
<p>Failure is making the choice to stop experimenting in life because you’re not meeting someone else’s expectations.</p>
<p>Failure is a way for someone else to instill enough fear in you to keep you from making the changes that <em>they’re</em> afraid you’ll make. If you make those changes, the other person will feel threatened. Whose life are you living?</p>
<p>Play. Experiment. Order the whole menu and see what you like the best. You’ll never know until you try.</p>
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Experimenting with Failure
