We all fear failure and one of the hardest challenges we face within ourselves is moving on from times we thought we failed.

When we are stuck in a failure mindset we get caught in a list of all the things we did wrong and we beat ourselves up for not being good enough, strong enough or wise enough. And that failure mindset creates an inner story of pain, shame, blame, guilt, regret and often anger.

When I get stuck in a failure mindset, and yes I actually do, I feel immobilized and my confidence shrinks into self-pity. This inner pity party steals my inner power and takes me out of my focus and purpose because all I feel is pity and regret for myself. I feel a darkness set in, a heaviness in my body that weighs me down and leaves me feeling restless and anxious.

Not very empowering! Can you relate?

I gave myself time and self reflection and once I began to re-frame my inner story, I began to feel stronger. This meant I let go of my failure mindset and began to create a new inner story with new meaning which would encourage me and pull me out of my darkness.

Here are the best lessons I learned from my failure:

We are always on the right path

Losing my wellness business a few years ago was a huge knock for me as I felt I never actualized the full vision I had for that business. And I had months of feeling lost and trying to reinvent myself again. Yet, as I began to create a new business and enjoy my new marriage and my new baby I began to realize that the universe was conspiring for my success and was helping me transition to a life of more balance, more abundance, more clarity and ultimately more happiness and success.

So we are always on the right path, even if we felt we detoured off the path. Everything happens exactly how it needs to happen for our growth.

Failure is my perception

What I call failure others have referred to as bravery, ambition, courage, action, a great attempt and more. So what we perceive as failure is based on our own expectations of ourselves. So the only perception that needed to change was my own and when I was more forgiving and understanding on myself and less caught up in my unrealistic expectations, I was able to see how well I actually did and what I had achieved.

This also meant that I had to let go of focusing on what others thought of me and focus on my own path.

Stop being so hard on yourself

Those expectations we have of ourselves cause us to be really hard on ourselves and instead of encouraging ourselves, loving ourselves and nurturing ourselves we act like the critical parent, punishing us for not fulfilling those expectations.

When we begin to nurture and love ourselves and treat ourselves with care, we become our greatest support rather than our greatest critic.

In our moments of challenge we learn our greatest lessons

As we go through  dark times and we feel lost, insecure, confused and stuck, we can begin to ask ourselves, what we are meant to be learning and how we can grow from this challenge.

The moment our focus shifts from stuckness to growth, we begin to move and we begin to grow stronger and wiser than we were before. The lessons make the pain worthwhile and when we reach the lesson which empowers us the most, we begin to understand why we were led down a certain path or had to go through the difficulty.

There is no such thing as failure

If failure is our own perception, and it helps us learn our greatest lessons, and when we become more supportive towards ourselves, we begin to realise that there really is no such thing as failure.

“Failure” is only a message of feedback which serves our growth. This feedback provides us with the powerful knowledge of how we can improve, what we can learn, how we can do better, how we can refine ourselves, what further growth is needed, what support is needed or how to listen closer to our intuition.

In fact it is through this feedback loop of taking in all my lessons and reaching a place of gratitude for the experiences, where I have learned to recognize the voice of my intuition. And the more I listen and follow my intuition the more magic keeps showing up in my life.

So follow your yellow brick road of life experiences and adventures. Keep on putting yourself out there, keep showing up, leap out of your comfort zone, and give everything your best shot because however it turns out will always be for your best advantage!