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Permission to Fail

I gave myself permission to fail. Yep, you read that right I gave myself permission to fail. I completed a challenge at the end of 2019, which in and of itself is incredible for me because often I have allowed my depression, anxiety, fear of failure and so many other excuses to sway me from finishing challenges in the past. But I finished it and it is because I allowed myself to fail.

No one likes to fail, especially a perfectionist like me.

No one likes to fail, especially a perfectionist like me. I must get it right, the first time, every time. I am very understanding that people are not perfect, and we often do not get it right, which is a part of life. But for me, that has always been unacceptable for myself. I must do it right every time or why I am even doing it. But going into this challenge I knew the last three months of the year would be crazy and I wanted desperately to finish, to succeed. But for me to succeed I had to be OK with failing.

What? How is failing succeeding? Because, the failing moments can spawn growth moments which can in turn hurl you forward through challenges that come up. And if you allow those failing moments to get the credit, they deserve, then you realize failing, isn’t really failing, but rather bumps or small detours or pivotal moments that can bring some of the most amazing growth moments which will in turn help you succeed far more than you thought possible.

When we learn that it is OK if we don’t get it right all the time, we learn to show ourselves grace.

When we learn that it is OK if we don’t get it right all the time, we learn to show ourselves grace. We as people tend to put so much pressure on ourselves to get it right every single time. We must cross everything off our lists to get to that next page or chapter and when we happen upon a large hurdle or challenge to overcome, we look at it as failing when we can’t hurl ourselves over them immediately.

Life is bumpy. Life is messy. Detours happen. We can’t under any circumstances be perfect all the time. We can make so many plans and have such tremendous intentions of getting it right but then life happens, and we get knocked down or we fall by the wayside for a moment. And so many times we look at those moments as though we are failing. But is it really failing?

Are we really failing if we fall, miss the mark or fall behind?

Are we really failing if we fall, miss the mark or fall behind? We look at it is failing because we are not where we want to be, right when we want to be there. But our timing isn’t always the best timing. And maybe, it is important that we learn something by falling so that when we do reach that goal or that destination it will be that much more rewarding and fulfilling of an accomplishment. Or the result is far richer than anything we could have imagined it to be.

When I was in the middle of the challenge, I got sick. So sick, I was in bed for days. There were parts of the challenge which had to do with exercising every day. Or “moving your body” for 30 minutes every day. When I was sick I couldn’t “move my body” for 30 minutes every day. I could barely move my body. I could have looked at that as “not doing the challenge right” which meant I was “failing” at it. But instead I focused on the other parts of the challenge I was able to do.

We can plan all we want to make things happen, but life will happen. I ended up getting sick four times during the challenge. I had every excuse to say well I guess this is over, but I didn’t, because the challenge wasn’t about crossing everything off the list every single day and being perfect at it. The challenge was about learning life’s lessons so that I could do better and learn about myself. It was about growing. And isn’t that also what life is about?

One might say, “but if you give yourself permission to fail then you can use that is an excuse to not try as hard or make excuses as to why you are not giving it your all”. We could absolutely do that. But that is not failing, that is quitting disguised as failing which isn’t the same thing. Quitting and failing are just not the same.

We are going to mess up.

We are going to mess up. We are going to fall. We are going to miss the mark. We are going to “fail.” But then we get back up, we try again, we learn from the mistake we made and do it differently. We keep going, however slow the progress, falling and failing until we reach the end. But at the end, you will look back and see that you learned so much. You will see growth and a better version of you.

Giving myself permission to fail gave me the permission to take a breath if I needed it. To sit “that one out” if it was necessary. It allowed me to take a different approach or figure out something new. It gave me a different outlook or a different view of the situation. It allowed me to keep moving forward no matter how hard each bump in the road was. Giving myself permission to fail was the necessary key to help me succeed.

Give yourself permission to “fail” and see how far you will go. You just might surprise yourself.

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