Day 18 - Do Something New and Fail Gloriously - 30 Days Mindfulness Challenge
"You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.”-Richard Branson
Embracing the fear of failure
Fear of failure is something we learn. When we're kids and we're learning to walk we don't ever think, after falling for the hundredth time
"Oh, well, maybe this walking thing isn't for me!"
And no parent in the world will ever yell at his stumbling kid:
"You're so stupid, how come you're falling so many times?"
Nobody would do this.
But something changes when that same child goes to school. She starts getting grades for everything she does. She is being compared to other kids and even ridiculed if she is slower to read than her classmates. Or if she's wearing glasses or whatever other particular thing that makes her "different" in any way.
And very early on that same brave kid that learned to walk and talk and eat with a fork, in a natural, trial and error way, is now learning that if she makes a mistake there might be a punishment. She's no longer encouraged when she falls, but put in a corner and sent to the Principal's office.
Unfortunately, most of us receive this "I'm not allowed to fail" program.
And the sad part is that without failing, there is no success. Nothing extraordinary has ever been achieved without a long trail of failures.
Every successful person in this world has learned to overcome the fear of failure.
“My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new.”- Richard Branson
So today, even if it's on a small scale, I invite you to face your fear of failure. Remember, small things done repeatedly add up.
Day 18 - Try Doing Something New, Even If You Know You'll Suck At It
How To Do This: Do something new today, especially if there is an area you know you are not great at. Whatever the "challenge" is for you, today, Just Do It: cook, dance, paint, draw, sing, run, learn a few words in a foreign language...be creative with this. Allow yourself to fail gloriously while giving your best to the task.
Laugh and have fun while doing it, but be careful and don't poison anyone with your burned pasta. :)
When you will be doing your new thing today, notice your thoughts, how you talk to yourself, how you scold or encourage yourself, how you get mad or laugh at yourself.
Awareness, as usual, is the key to transforming this action into an opportunity to develop your mindfulness.
Notice these stages as you'll go through your thing:
- getting all excited saying "I'm gonna do this today!"
- getting out of your comfort zone when actually doing it
- taking the risk to fail
- failing and doing it all over again
- laughing at yourself and having fun while doing it.
Or you might be going through different stages and emotions, who knows?
Just don't take yourself too seriously, and as usual, have fun with this.
image source Getty Images via Inc
A note on The 30 Days Mindfulness Challenge. I initially published this challenge 2 years ago on my blog Being Raluca and I'm using those articles as a base for this one. I sometimes rewrite 80% of the article, other times I keep more of the original version and rewrite and add less new content.
I'm a psychologist, intuitive coach, blogger and vlogger. You can find me mainly on my blog at Being Raluca where I write about communication, relationships, listening and sexuality. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @raluca.
