We get up everyday, get ready and attack our to-do lists and goals like a hungry tiger. We know it’s important to lead healthy lives and be productive, good citizens in our community. The deal is, sometimes it doesn’t always go down that way. There are days when we have legitimate excuses like, **I have a stomach bug and I can’t go more than 5 feet from the bathroom**. Another good excuse is, **My kid is sick and needs me to snuggle them back to health**. I know there are other excuses some may deem to be legit. In the end, for whatever reason, sometimes we FAIL!! Whether that failure comes with a legit excuse or the other kind *that we don’t ever like to admit too*, we ALL FAIL sometimes. How you deal with this failure is the difference in the people who are a success and the ones that let it define them, what they do, and the decisions they make after said failure.
Molly’s last perm and hair fail!
There are many schools of thought on this. I won’t be talking about them all on this post *nor do I even probably know them all*.
- Always strive for success and if you fail, you suck and need to be better or you’ll suck forever. Yeah, so, I’m guessing that most of you will agree, this isn’t a very positive direction to go. What this will undoubtedly lead to is a snowball of constant failures, getting larger and larger each time, ending in a deep and possibly dangerous depression.
- So I failed! What of it? I know I’ll do it again so, whatever….”where’s that tub of ice cream?” I’m of the mindset that this method is equally bad on the other side of the spectrum from the first. To be so uncaring of your failures or missteps, is the same as not caring about yourself at all. Guess where that leads…..Yep, more and more failures….oh yeah and right back to that deep and possibly dangerous depression again.
- Yeah, I failed. It happens sometimes. This is what I’ve learned…This is what I feel….This is my plan of action. This could be a productive path to take and here’s why;
Knowing that EVERYONE fails sometimes means that you need to recognize that failure is as common as breathing and a chance for awesomeness ahead. When you’ve had a failure, own it. Know that it’s common and that it does nothing more than give you a learning opportunity. Analyze why you’ve failed. Did you set yourself up for sabotage? Did you leave bad triggers and landmines all over your path set up for that day? Did you get enough sleep and fuel your body properly for whatever your task was? If not, than the failure can’t be much of a surprise can it? Here’s the learning part….take the reason you’ve failed and never set yourself up to have it happen like that again. Yes, you may fail at the same task again but, it’ll probably be for a new reason, and you can adjust so, you don’t fail again for that reason. Before you know it….I doubt you’ll fail at that task ever again.
Toe turn fail!!
Toe turn success
We will all fail, at many different things, all the time throughout our lives. *please repeat that last sentence filled with commas so you pause and let it soak in* Failing is great…..IF……you take that failure, learn from it, grow from it and end up thriving from it. Learn to love yourself and know that you deserve to not let failures define you as a failure. Don’t let negative talk give a failure power to bring you down that dark abyss of nastiness.
Here’s how I’m hoping you’ll move forward to make failures work in your favor and set yourself up for success (regardless of what your tasks are, these tips are universal);
- Get enough sleep every night (8ish hours for adults). Try very hard to not screw up your schedule on the weekends. It’s fun to stay up late and live more carefree when you don’t have an alarm the next morning. However, the weekend is only 2 nights, and recovering lost sleep (or wonky sleep) on Sunday night isn’t going to cut it and now you’ve started a brand new week on a crap note.
- Before you hit the rack for your totally awesome and healing sleep, make your next day’s Plan of Action. You may have a working calendar on your phone or the old school paper kind. Maybe you just write out a list on a fun notepad or journal *swooning at the thought of shopping for notepads and journals because, the office supply section just does that to me* 😉 Regardless of how you do, look at your schedule, decide what things need to be done and prioritize them accordingly. Imagine how much more successful you’ll be when that hungry tiger is all ready for the day and has a working task list all ready to go in front of them? Totally unstoppable right!?!
Thanks to “The Dork Side” for this funny.
(Also to Kristen Lamb who saw this funny first and posts loads of funny’s for all our enjoyment)
- Be sure you have the Proper fuel for your body. A tiger can’t get much accomplished or have many successes on cupcakes. With proper nutrition for your body **not all bodies need the same nutrition so, experiment with various nutrients until your body looks and FEELS awesome!! To start, I’d go with no sugar and no processed food and go from there to see what your body tolerates**
- This goes into #3 but, it’s so important that it deserves its own number. DRINK YOUR WATER!!! Hydration is one of the biggest keys to success. I’ve blogged about it before here . There are SO MANY REASONS why drinking more water than almost all of us currently do, will help us be successful in all endeavors in our lives. The biggest reason of course is that it keeps us HEALTHY!!!!.
- Take your day in stride. Everyday will be different. Things happen and many times we aren’t in control. Learn how to relax about it all. At the end of the day, if something happened and you have a failure to-do on your list. Recognize if it happened because of something that was in or out of your control? If it was out of your control then, um hello….totally not your fault!! Add it to your next days list and move one. If it was in your control, ok then, what should I have done different?…Alright, that’s what I’ll do tomorrow and we’ll get it done right next time.
At the end of the day….failures are just blips and they can be learned from and changed. Don’t let it be anything else. You are worth it, your family is worth it and society wants you to love yourself enough to take a failure, dust off and keep on, keepin’ on!!!
**I have been SUCCESSFUL at writing this post after having FAILED writing a post for quite some time. YAY for me!! Onto learning how I made it happen and doing it more often!!**
What is the biggest failure you’ve had and what did you do with it? Would you have done something different if it happened again?
Molly Pendlebury 