Article by Nandi Hetenyi
Photo Credit: Nancy Schoenmakers
Magazine: Issue #17
Imagine for a moment how differently you would feel about your life if you weren’t afraid of failing. Napolean Hill wrote that every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.
Fear of failure. We’ve all been there. I know I have. It creates this frozen feeling, a paralysis that disconnects you from the flow of life.
Perhaps there is so much fear around failure because it reflects back your humanity, shows you where you aren’t “perfect” and makes you have to work harder and more diligently. Maybe it would be nice to be let off the hook once in a while or get it right the first time. There are countless stories of successful people who have failed a multitude of times before they tasted the sweetness of a success or a victory. It’s an impossible task to compare your insides and your “behind the scenes” to other people’s outsides.
Let’s reframe failure.
Perceived failure often comes in the form of mistakes. Making a mistake is to understand or identify something incorrectly. This doesn’t mean anything about you, but it’s easy to attach so many stories to a mistake based on past experiences and it all gets muddled.
No masterpiece was ever created the first time around. Mistakes are an opportunity, not only to learn, but for soul growth, deeper self-understanding and re-creating. This is the cycle of life, creation – birth – generation – death. Every project and relationship we undertake necessarily goes through these cycles and mistakes are a part of it.
Success and creativity then does not exist in the perfect conception of an original idea but rather in allowing the original idea to alchemize you and your creation.
Alchemizing failure:
1| Mistakes happen.
As the Buddha taught, life is suffering. Part of being human is making mistakes. Welcome mistakes as teachers sent to send you off on the right course.
4| Drop the story.
You create more suffering, anxiety and self-doubt when you attach meaning, a story or future trip about the mistake that has occurred.
3| Become curious.
What is the mistake or perceived failure? What can you learn from it?
4| Create space for conscious reflection.
What happens in life is not happening TO you but FOR you to learn so you can grow nearer to what you truly desire.
5| Re-chart the map and take action.
What needs to change in your plan of action? What inner work can you do? If every failure contains the seeds of an equivalent success, examine that seed and question what wants to grow from it. Each step is an opportunity for greater confidence and enjoying the successes when they come!
