There is no perfect life that one person can live. Every person who walks this earth will experience all the feelings and emotions of what it is to be alive. People will experience happiness, sadness, anger, love, and many other feelings. However, there is one feeling that everyone will experience whether they want to or not and that feeling is “failure.” In today’s blog, I want to share some of my past failures to show you that regardless of what has happened in your past, you are responsible for your future.

Failure is defined as being unsuccessful in an attempt or omission of the expected results. For example, if you have a basketball and try to get it into the hoop with each attempt that you make, and the ball does not go into the hoop, then that is a failed attempt. If you do manage to get it in the center of the hoop, then that would be considered a success. I chose to use basketball as my first example of the day because many people will not just take one shot when playing basketball. They will take several. They might miss each time, but they make sure that they keep shooting until they at least get one.

Why is this motivation to make a basket easy, and when it comes to our daily life, we give up after the first or a few attempts? Perhaps, you do not lose anything when you miss a basket. What about NBA players? What happens when they fail to make a shot? The answer is they keep shooting their shots. If you do not attempt to shoot and score, then you will not score. The same can be for in life. You have the chance to win and score points each day in your life, but the fear of failure is heavy and keeps you grounded and unwilling to take any risk.

Growth begins on the other side of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to take risks in order to progress in life. You might fall down and get beat up, but you have to decide if you will try again or just call it quits. When you quit, though, you give up all hope of success. So why do so many people give up when failure knocks down their sandcastle? The answer is that failing, like losing, does not feel good.

At a very young age, we would push past failure because we just did not know any better. Our brain was not the roadblock it is today. With the loss of our imagination and the process of being groomed by the school system to know good from bad, we lost that childhood bravery. For example, when you are learning how to walk or ride a bike – failing is not something that stays in your mind. If you have the goal of walking or riding a bike and fear or anxiety is not present, then you will reach your goal.

When you were learning how to walk, I am sure that falling over was part of the process. Failing was part of the process. Again, failure is the omission of the desired results. If babies had the mindset of many adults then there would be no more babies walking because they will be filled with anxiety, depression, and fear of their next attempt. However, babies just know how to be focused and see the one thing that matters, the goal. That one thing is the goal of walking. Not until they reach that point of success will they be satisfied. We can learn something from when we were young.

I remember when I was learning how to ride my bike without the training wheels. My granduncle helped to take the wheels off, and he asked me if I was sure. I told him yes – I was, and he said Ok. He told me that once he took them off, he would not put them back on. As I got on my bike with no training wheels, I had a new challenge ahead of me that day. I had to learn how to ride my bike again. I started off crashing into the wall and falling over for about 30 minutes. At this time, my granduncle had seen enough. He saw me fail and fail and fail, and then he said, I told you so. Yes, he did tell me, but what I didn’t tell him was that giving up was not an option in my mind.

I think after many attempts of not being able to ride the bike, I just started to sit on the seat and glide around. Doing that small task of gliding helped me learn the balance I needed to ride. I then would do one pedal push and glide. Eventually, I would do two-pedal pushes and glides, and before you knew it, I was wheeling and dealing (what my grandma would say). I was in business. It was not an easy task for me to go from having training wheels to riding without them, but I had one thing I needed to push back from failure. That one thing was being relentless and self-motivated to overcome the obstacle that was before me.

To gain this type of mindset, you have first to get rid of the things that are giving fuel to your failure. Those feelings can be anxiety, depression, fear, or lack of confidence. Whichever of these things might be holding you back, you can work to overcome them. You might have test anxiety and do terribly on tests because of the pressure you feel to do good or succeed. How can you get over this feeling? For me, when I had test anxiety, I would set myself up for success. I would study more than the average student just to make sure that when I got the test, it wasn’t like I was looking at hieroglyphics. I was confident in my ability because I knew what I was cable of.

Anxiety stems from the unknowingness that is you. Anxiety can be a mixture of fear and self-doubt that will immobilize you from taking action. You might know deep down that you will be Ok or that it is not that scary, but the fact that you have ruminated on those negative outcomes can cause you to panic. How can you not allow this type of anxiety to take over? The trick is to find coping techniques that work for you. Maybe having a good night’s rest or counteracting the negative outcomes with positive ones instead. Though this anxiety can feel overwhelming, you have to take it in small chunks. Handle the problems one section at a time until it is completely worked through.

Sometimes looking at the bigger picture or the amount of work needed can cause unnecessary anxiety. Schooling was not something that came easy to me when I was young. I would see a test and immediately start to think that if I did not pass this test, then I would feel bad because my parents would yell at me and they would take my video games away from me. I was worried about all that instead of just getting a good grade and keeping everything good. I did learn over the years that in order for me to be a good test taker, I had to study my butt off. Though I knew this, I would allow procrastination to take over, and that would result in unnecessary anxiety.

Being prepared can be your best friend when dealing with your anxiety about failing. My co-operating teacher in college told me, “You have to be ready for bear.” This saying means that you have to be ready to take down a bear if one does happen to try and charge you. Now, I do not walk around with the artillery to take down a bear, but my mindset is strong enough to take down any obstacle I face. My teacher was saying the same thing Abraham Lincoln had said about cutting down a tree, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” I learned that you should prepare yourself as much as possible before you set forth in an attempt. Though you might never feel fully ready, you are if you have been putting in the work. Be prepared for whatever is thrown at you. Even if things do not go the way you thought out, you can find a way to get through.

Regardless if you have anxiety or are fully prepared, pushing past failure requires a determined mindset. The CEO who has a failing company should not be jumping ship. They are the captain and the only person who can make things right again. Regardless if they fail and have to start all over, having gone bankrupt or whatever the reason, they can choose to try again. The successful people in the world have most likely failed more than the average person. Many people are not willing to put themselves at risk or in a stressful situation. This comes from our primitive brains telling us to take it easy and not expend more energy than what is needed. In a sense, our brain takes us to the base of the mountain where the path to our dream life begins, and we decide if you want to attempt the journey.

You can choose to live a complacent and normal life at the base of the mountain or seek something greater. The hike up the mountain will not be an easy trip. You might stumble and fall all the way to the base of the mountain again. Do you have the will to keep on trying to reach the top? Even I have had many ups and down with my business. I like to call them “Unexpected surprises”, but regardless of what is thrown my way, I know I can push past it and get to where I want to be.

The last part I want to live with, moving past failure, is relationships. You might be in a relationship or in the process of looking for one. Have you ever taken the time to look back at why your other relationships didn’t work out in the past? Of course, it was their fault, right? Perhaps, it could be something that you have grown so accustomed to that you do not realize it to be a negative or less desirable trait someone looks for in a partner. Maybe you are not the cleanest person in the world. Though it might be Ok with you, it might be a deal-breaker for whoever dates you. The list can go on about why relationships fail, but I want to talk about the ending of the relationship.

When the relationship has just ended, you feel down and out. You might not want to try another relationship at that point in time or ever. You got hurt, and you do not like the feeling. You do not want to feel that feeling again and not getting into a relationship is a surefire way not to get hurt like this again. That is true, but when you find the right person to love and fight for, then you realize that all your past failed relationships have helped you get here. Even if you get lucky and find the person of your dreams the first time, you will go through ups and downs. You will go through failed agreements or failed attempts to be loving. Whatever it is you fail at in the relationship, you can push past that.

Relationships can teach you many things. The most important thing a relationship can teach you is to love. Love is something that is full of hope and aspiration. What if you started to fill yourself and your space with love? All that failure, self-doubt, and anxiety/depression caused by failures will just not take precedence in your life anymore. You will start to see that love is always the outcome, no matter how bad you think things are. Though rough times are not fun for anyone, you can make those rough times end much sooner. Those rough times end when you cut the tube of negativity that is feeding them and keeping them alive. Instead, feed your past fears with care, love, compassion, and hope, and watch how those failures begin to morph into another attempt for success.

Let’s face it. Some days you will not feel like doing something. Perhaps you are fearful of failing. These moments of fear, self-doubt, and giving up can be flipped around. You can push past any failure in your life. Just like the baby who keeps standing to learn how to walk or the basketball player that keeps shooting hoops regardless of how many he has missed. The failures we have in our life can be our greatest lesson or our breaking point. Failing is the easiest way to learn what didn’t work. Finding out what works needs failure, so that means in order to get to your success, you have to push. You have to keep on pushing in the times you want to give up. Failure does not feel good, but quitting feels even worst. So today, write down a list of things you have failed, succeeded, and quit. Which areas can you push yourself to get to the next level? Learn to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Remember, growth begins just outside of your comfort zone.

Let today be the day you take charge of your responsibilities, and do not allow failure to hold you down any longer. If you are having a difficult time and feel stuck and do not know the next move, then ask for help. Do not let your pride keep you from your success. Asking for a hand is not something to be ashamed of. You are filled with many wonderful abilities and talents that many people dream of having. Start to seek others who will fill in your weak areas so that you can turn your weaknesses into strengths. Be sure to help people in areas you know you can be of help to boost your confidence. Lastly, make sure you live up to your potential each day and do not let failure keep you from the one thing that matters the most. Your dreams.

Until then,

Michael Rearden

Founder of Reven Concepts