how can we grow from failure
How can I use the negative experiences in my life to drive me?
What fuel can I draw from my failures?
What lessons can I take from my grief?
What insights can I extract from my embarrassments?
Negative experiences can derail us to the point of destruction if not put into perspective. The negative experiences we have provide the fuel for change and the determination behind getting things done. These experiences are there to teach us valuable lessons and without them there would be so much learning we would miss out on. For me negative experiences make me do all I can to avoid those situations ever from happening again. Those experiences provide motivation to stay on a different track and to create more positive experiences.
Failure provides the fuel to avoid that failure in the future. Failure teaches me what not to do and how to shift my approach in life to have more success. Failure is a teacher and how we put failure into perspective drastically affects how we move forward from there. I don’t particularly like the word failure but rather like to look at not ideal outcomes as learning moments. When I look at my marathon I could say I failed because I didn’t reach my goal but instead I look at it as another opportunity to learn, adjust and move forward stronger and with better information. I know the little things in training that I need to do to keep injury away, I DID PR so I was successful, and I can take that experience to move forward better equipped than I was before. Knowledge, experience, growth…that is fuel.
Both negative experiences and failures are all about the lens through which you view those experiences. You can either sit in them and fall into a pit of misery, reliving those harmful emotions over and over, or you say thank you for teaching me and grow. Journaling can be a very powerful practice in that thank you moment to reflect on what the experience taught you and how you move forward. When a negative experience of failure is viewed through the lens of education, insight, and personal growth it is much easier to see past a particular moment. Use these opportunities to grow and evolve. Think of the beauty on the other side of that growth.
Grief is a different experience than something negative or a failure. Grief is deep deep pain that goes beyond our own emotional choices often. From my grief I can learn that there will always come the day when things get brighter. In grief it can feel like you are being smothered by sadness and there will never be another day when you are happy but there is always a day when it gets a little bit easier. There will come a day when the pain doesn’t ache quiet as bad, when you feel joy, and in the beginning it may last only a moment but that’s growth. From there it continues to get easier to come out of that grief. Keep moving forward, appreciate the lessons from grief, but keep going because there will be a way out of it. Grief is not something to shy away from but to feel. Feel the grief in your body, accept this emotion and all the power behind it. Understand where this pain is coming from and say thank you. Thank you for feeling and experiencing this powerful human emotion. Grief is not permanent but the journey through will not be easy. From the book “Option B” I have learned so much about how grief manifests and the journey it takes through out bodies. There is another side and you will get there.
Embarrassments are so individual, some people are more easily embarrassed than others and everyone processes it so differently. For me the greatest insight is to simply not be embarrassed. That sounds so simple but it’s important to remember that we all do and say ridiculous things and that the less attention we give to it the easier it is to move on. Sitting in that embarrassment can be painful and continue to let that feeling linger but to move on simply to let it go is key.
If there is one key takeaway from this reflection it is that the lens through which we view our experiences and emotions is crucially important. The shape our experiences take truly affects how we process them and grow.
