How to Avoid Feeling Like a Failure
I have spoken to a few people, recently, that have set themselves up for failure in so many different ways, and I’d love to be able to stop that. What I’m going to do today is give you a couple of examples of how people set themselves up for failure, and then show you how you can turn that around. Setting yourself up for failure is a form of self-sabotage, and I am the queen of all things self-sabotage. I feel uniquely able to share with you different ways that I’ve been able to overcome that, because it’s no fun to feel like a failure. The more you feel like that, the more comfortable you get with feeling like that, and the more your brain then looks for more opportunities and more proof to keep you in that frame of mind, which, absolutely 0% of people should want.
I’ll give you an example of this vicious cycle. Recently I was talking to someone who for many years was trying to get up at 7:00 in the morning. Yet despite all her efforts, she could only get herself out of bed at 7:45. The problem with that is that before she even started the day, she was already feeling like she was behind. How many times have you woken up and you’ve hit snooze a couple of times or even slept through your alarm?
Before your feet hit the floor, you’re already feeling that something is wrong. I don’t want you to feel like that. It’s actually quite simple to turn this negative thought pattern around. The first step, however, is to recognize that you’re doing it to yourself in the first place.
The second step is the fix. I told my friend to set her alarm for 8:00 am. If you get up every day at 7:45 and you set your goal for 8:00 am, you’re actually 15 minutes early! This way, you start your day feeling like a success. That tiny little change in the way that you think about yourself can make such a huge different in your perspective on life.
The same scenario applies when going to bed at night. If you are not getting enough sleep and you perpetually push back going to bed, it is worth sitting down and unpacking why it is you are pushing your bedtime. When talking to my friend about pushing her own bedtime, we unpacked that she had sadly lost her purpose. And because there was no purpose, she didn’t want to get up in the morning, and then she didn’t want to go to bed at night.
A lot of people who experience traumas go through a similar thought process. The way to get my friend past her traumas, past her negative thoughts was to bring that connection back with what she does and how awesome she makes people feel because she’s a part of their life.
It’s easy to apologize when we’re making mistakes that set us up. But we apologize so often these days that we end up apologizing for things we haven’t even done. While apologies can hold serious value, the apologies we dole out day to day to minimize disturbances on others actually minimize our view of ourselves. We reinforce a pattern in our brain that we take up space and do not add worth to this world. The more we reinforce this thought pattern, the harder it can be to pull ourselves out of it. If I can pull myself out of my negative belief systems, and out of my self-sabotage, I know you can too.
Another way we set ourselves up to feel like a failure is by trying to do too many things at once. This is especially true of entrepreneurs. By starting one project and picking up another, and another – none end up being completed. In the end you feel both emotionally and financially spent and it’s difficult to see the progress you’ve made. So what do you do there? Narrow your focus on one maybe two things that you can do consistently and well. That’s where you’re going to find that you have focus, you have intentionality with your time.
You’ll quickly find that the more you make a habit of something, the more you will come to enjoy it. I felt the same way when I started making videos. At first you feel funny and unsure of yourself, but your consistency is what will generate results. If you feel like you could use an extra hand to help you on your journey to avoid feeling like a failure, I encourage you to visit my website. You can schedule a 100% free strategy call. I offer this free strategy call because sometimes you don’t know what you need to do to move ahead. This call collects the important information and the patterns in your life that are holding you back. I’m not a therapist, but I can definitely help.
What I’m interested in is what’s going to get you to the next level, wherever that next level will be. What are your sabotaging habits and how do we turn those around? When we figure out how to turn those around we easily can set you up to build a thriving business. You don’t build a thriving business by nose to the grindstone. If you think you’re going to get where you want by working incredibly hard, you’re going to drive yourself into the ground and you’re going to burn out. It’s no fun, I have been there. Instead, we will focus on the things that bring you joy and how to get you to consistently perform the things that give you joy in your business.
I hope you found this helpful. If you want to stop the cycles of self-sabotage, if you’ve been sitting in that moment of wondering why you can’t get any further, please reach out to me.
Not being a failure is a choice. Not being a failure is being aware of the sabotaging cycles we create for ourselves, deciding we no longer want to accept that as our reality, and then moving on.