You’re not going to like it when you first hear it, but I promise you’ll thank me. If you want to be happy and successful in your business (whatever your definition of that is) you need to embrace failure.
Yep. Embrace failure.
We live in this weird world where more and more of our lives are shown as edited highlights. Our social media feeds are dominated by success after smiling success. And it can screw with our heads because it hides the messy reality of being a human.
This is especially true when it comes to those with online businesses. There’s a deliberate marketing tactic that’s based around presenting yourself as someone with an enviable life because this triggers a sense of ‘authority’ – we subconsciously associate those people as folk who know what they’re talking about, can be trusted and who we should listen to.
At it’s worse it’s a deliberate form of manipulation. But even when it’s done innocently, it also leaves us with a sense of inadequacy.
‘Why isn’t MY life that organized?, What am I doing wrong? Why isn’t my business as easy as theirs What’s wrong with me that I’m not making six figures/living on a beach/speaking to thousands at conferences/having a blissful marriage?’
The truth is that no one’s life is perfect. No one’s life is without mess or is always easy. So if we just present this edited version of ourselves, we’re inadvertently adding to this problem. The cycle continues and we all end up feeling crappier and crappier about our ‘normal’ experiences – because they start to seem abnormal in this pristine and edited world.
Embracing failure is about accepting a real and messy life.
And there’s another reason to embrace failure. one related to your business (well, actually your whole life –
The truth is you will only be able to build your business if you get used to failing.
When we reach, we risk.
And there’s a very good chance we’ll fail. This is a good thing. We need to build our resilience through failure. Because if we’re not failing, we’re not doing enough.
In this podcast episode, I’m going to explain a bit more about why you need to get used to failure and ’embrace the suck’ as Brene Brown says.
I share a few (of many) of my own experiences of failing in my business and how every single one of them helped to take me closer to my goal of a sustainable business AND how I still experience failures in my business. At the time all of these failures hurt like hell, but with some distance, some of them are pretty hilarious in hindsight.
I don’t LIKE failing – hell no! but I’ve learned that they are a necessary part of growing myself and my business. It’s OK to feel disappointed, cry, lick your wounds, eat a LOT of chocolate. But then you have a choice. Do you bounce back or give up?
The more you practice, the easier this becomes (note: I’m not saying it’s EASY, just that it gets easier with practice).
I’m such a fan of breaking this taboo of revealing our failures that I make it a regular part of my group coaching program The Supernova Collective – where we regularly challenge ourselves to share our failures in the supportive arena of the community we’ve cultivated. That way we build our collective resilience, break done entrepreneur isolation and support one another through the inevitable messy bits.