Failing Forward
Redefining my reality
“If you do not fail you will never learn, failing makes you better than someone who did not try at all.” Motivational speakers would say.
I agree with that hogwash unfortunately, what they fail to mention is the dying and crushing feeling it leaves you with when you do fail. The gasping for air, (sounds familiar?). The sense of unworthiness, it leaves you with, when a project you were so excited about does not kick off as hoped that the chat in the group goes dead with silence amongst your team because you are too scared to address the cow in the room.
Failure. It has kept me this way, for months. Toiling and turning in my bed, blaming myself for things, stalling for so long. Wasting each person’s resources as the one good they invested in, I thought could benefit all, went down the drain. Silently, I take those hurtful voices in my head as they boisterously tell me things that I had done.
“I had failed my team.”
“I had failed my mentor.”
“I had failed my family.”
“I had wasted their time and resources.”
“I am a failure.”
Of course, I reeked of failure because I had failed! Those words said, all unkind, I deserved them. in fact, I accept them as my reality.
Such Cowardice, I exemplify. If I tell them, it would truly mean I failed and wasted their time but I know there is a need for me to address it. They deserve better, the only way around this failure is moving forward. Taking the lessons, working on them and eventually taking that step.
I may not make told them yet but I believe, this is the first step.
“This fall does not define me.”
“I should not have to worry and blame myself for things I could not control.”
These are the words I am going to keep telling myself till they become my reality. I am choosing to redefine my reality one step at a time although I may not have told have accepted the failure yet but it is a work in progress.
Till then, I am choosing to pick myself up.
