Why failure is good!

Why is it that most people are merely making a living rather than designing a life? Why do so few people get close to fulfilling their potential? The vast majority lead a “settle for” existence – they would love to have a better quality of life, but they`ll settle for what they have got. So many people go to their graves with their songs never sung, their books never written, their mountains never climbed, their dreams never achieved. 

Why? Because of kakorrhaphiophobia. Commonly known as the Fear of Failure! 

Psychologists will tell you that this is the biggest single obstacle to success in adult life.  Why? Where do these fears come from? More importantly, what can we do about them? None of us were born with the fears we carry around with us today. Some fears are valuable, they are good, they help keep us alive, the rest are inappropriate and destructive, a product of negative conditioning.

 We were always told “be careful”, not “go and take lots of risks today!”– any fear, inhibition, worry or hang up we learnt along the way with the help of our parents, and teachers. Failure had consequences, which invariably meant punishment. And yet when we were very young, we failed constantly but were continually encouraged by parents to use these failures as stepping - stones to success.

 How many children do you know who walked at their first attempt? How many babies are born with basic literacy skills? The problem is, somewhere along the way we have learned that failure is a thing to be avoided. The fear of failure is so great in some people that they give up trying altogether.

These are the people who believe that the past equals the future; they try something new get their fingers burnt, and decide not to try again ever. The belief that they won`t succeed in the future because they failed in the past is irrational. It presupposes that no learning has taken place.

 If they have learned from their previous experience then they have succeeded; they have succeeded in learning something that will give them better results the next time!

 Remember, there is no such thing as failure, only feedback! 

Henry Ford once pointed out that failure is only an opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Just imagine how much your life could change if you adopted this paradigm. If you really believed that every bit of negative feedback you received was beneficial and productive, speeding you on your way to success, wouldn`t you double your efforts and welcome “failures”?

You`re not a failure if you don`t make it, you`re a success because you try.

It is important to remember that some of the greatest successes in history were also the greatest failures. Thomas Edison was the world`s greatest and most prolific inventor in history, and yet when he was attempting to invent what was to become the precursor of the electric light bulb, he failed nearly 10,000 times! After 5,000 attempts the leading scientific authorities of the day condemned him for wasting his time. They asked him why he continued after his obvious failures, he told them the truth – he hadn`t failed at all, he had successfully found 5,000 ways that did not work! Therefore, he was 5,000 ways closer to finding the answer!

 Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player in history – he hit more home runs than anyone else and set a record that stood for nearly 30 yrs.! At the same time, he was also the worst baseball player in the world – he struck out more times than anyone else! In other words he succeeded more because he risked failure more than anyone else.

There will always be a risk involved, particularly when you are attempting something new, different or challenging. It is in embracing the challenge and taking the risk that personal growth takes place. Most people have a “comfort zone” mentality. They stay with what they know, whether they like it or not.

"Ships are safe in the harbour, but that`s not what ships were designed for"

To achieve our highest aspirations and become truly fulfilled we must be prepared to break out of the comfort zone. Pushing through the fear is less painful than living with the guilt, the discontent and the nagging question, “What if………..?” What could you achieve? What could you have? Where could you go? If you only tried. If you only believed in yourself. If you only felt the fear and did it anyway (See Susan Jeffers).

It is incredible that most people are sitting in the lay by of life watching the rest just drive past, they are waiting for the right time. Guess what? There is never a right time! Don`t wait for the fear to go away, it probably never will. Every time you face a new challenge, the fear will be there, staring you in the face. You`ll never get rid of the fear as long as you continue to grow, but it dissipates when you accept the challenge, and here`s the good news -  Everyone feels the same!

So whether your fear of failure relates to:- applying for a new job, speaking in public, talking to strangers, setting up your own business, etc. what can be done about it?

Here`s a strategy –

1.    Ask yourself, “If things don`t work out, what`s the worst thing that could happen?” Whatever scenario you come up with, move to point 2. 

2.    Let the next four words be your mantra, “I can deal with it!” Remember, the fear of failure is just a belief that you can`t deal with the consequences. Develop a trust in your ability to deal with whatever life throws at you. Because you can. You have infinite capacity. You haven`t begun to scratch the surface of your potential.

        What if I make a mistake and my boss shouts at me? “I can deal with it”.

What if I say the wrong thing and embarrass myself? “I can deal with it”.

What if I lose my job? “I can deal with it”. 

 It`s commonly held that 90% of the things we worry about never actually happen! Of the 10% that`s left , 5% is never as bad as we imagined, that leaves only 5% which is out of our control, and if it`s out of our control why worry? Whatever happens, “You can deal with it!”

3.    Once you have acknowledged that you`ll handle the outcome whatever happens, then turn your thoughts completely to a successful outcome. Focus on the outcome you want. It is important to remember that we are always drawn in the direction of our most dominant thoughts.

You get more of what you focus on.

Will Carling, the former English rugby captain, was once going through a bad patch when his form was suffering. The last thing the coach said as he ran onto the pitch was, “Don`t drop the ball!” Guess what happened? He fumbled it more times than he could remember. You must keep your focus on what you want, not what you don`t want.

Self expectancy is a self fulfilling prophecy.

4.    Listen to your self - talk. Psychologists tell us we spend 70% of our time talking to         ourselves. The point is, what are we saying? If we get negative feedback, this is what a loser says, “I knew it would go wrong, it always does. I`ll never be able to do this!” A winner`s self talk goes like this, “That`s not like me. Next time I`ll do better!” Remember, your worst enemy is the enemy within. The little voice that convinces you not to try in case you fail. Don`t listen to it! Keep chanting your mantra. It takes time and self discipline, but the results are worth it.

If you want to lead a richer, more fulfilling life, don`t do what the masses do. The majority of people are intent on avoiding failure, mistakes, pitfalls and obstacles so they can get safely in one piece to death!!

Don`t live with a comfort zone mentality. Step out, face the challenge and remember, whatever happens, you can deal with it! Go out and fail more!

How negative thoughts can harm your health

“One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.” 
― John Stuart Mill

Our beliefs are so powerful they drive our behaviours, control our actions and ultimately shape our destinies. Have you ever considered why you believe what you believe? Where do your beliefs come from? Most of us go around on auto pilot with our lives being controlled by a set of beliefs that may be limiting us or empowering us. It doesn`t matter whether they are "right"or "wrong", "true" or "false". It only matters whether they are helping or hindering us. Since the majority of our beliefs were instilled in us at a very young age don`t you think it might be a good idea to occasionally question their validity? If perception is reality and we become what we think about. What are you thinking about? What do you believe about your world and yourself? Before you answer, think very carefully. It`s very possible your beliefs could kill or cure you. Check out the following article and video by Dr. Lissa Rankin and make your own mind up.

"Most of us have heard of “the placebo effect”—the heal-inducing effect patients in clinical trials experience when they believe they’re getting a fancy new drug or surgery but are actually getting fake treatment. The placebo effect is real. It works about eighteen to eighty percent of the time, and it’s not just in your head—it actually dilates bronchi, heals ulcers, makes warts disappear, drops your blood pressure, and even makes bald men who think they’re getting Rogaine grow hair!

Unwanted Side Effects

But the placebo effect has a shadow side. The same mind-body power that can heal you can also harm you. When patients in double-blinded clinical trials are warned about the side effects they may experience if they’re given the real drug, approximately twenty-five percent experience sometimes severe side effects, even when they’re only taking sugar pills.

Those treated with nothing more than placebos often report fatigue, vomiting, muscle weakness, colds, ringing in the ears, taste disturbances, memory disturbances, and other symptoms that shouldn’t result from a sugar pill.

Interestingly, these “nocebo” complaints aren’t random; they tend to arise in response to the side effect warnings on the actual drug or treatment. The mere suggestion that a patient may experience negative symptoms in response to a medication (or a sugar pill) may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you tell a patient treated with a placebo he might experience nausea, he’s likely to feel nauseous. If you suggest that he might get a headache, he may. Patients given nothing but saline who thought it was chemotherapy actually threw up and lost their hair!

When You Think You’re Going to Die

In another study, patients about to undergo surgery who were “convinced” of their impending death were compared to another group of patients who were merely “unusually apprehensive” about death. While the apprehensive bunch fared pretty well, those who were convinced they were going to die usually did.

Similarly, women who believed they were prone to heart disease were four times more likely to die. It’s not because these women had poorer diets, higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, or stronger family histories than the women who didn’t get heart disease. The only difference between the two groups was their beliefs.

The nocebo effect is probably most obvious in “voodoo death”—when a person is cursed, told they will die, and then dies. The notion of voodoo death doesn’t just apply to witch doctors in tribal cultures. The literature shows that patients believed to be terminal who are mistakenly informed that they have only a few months to live have died within their given time frame, even when autopsy findings reveal no physiological explanation for the early death.

Dr. Steve’s Story

In response to what I said in my latest TEDx talk about the placebo effect’s evil twin, “the nocebo effect,” L. Chas sent me an email, telling me the story of her brother Steve, who was a physician diagnosed with the exact same illness that was his specialty. When he was diagnosed with malignant tumors in both lungs, his doctors told him that he had five years to live, and knowing what he knew about the disease, Steve believed this.

Exactly five years later, to the day, he was snorkeling in Maui when he was found unconscious on the shore. Steve was resuscitated, but he had been without oxygen to the brain for over four minutes and wound up in a coma until his family chose to withdraw life support.

L. Chas wrote, “More than anything else, I think my brother believed that, when diagnosed with his disease, a patient has ‘five good years left.’ Just as you’ve said in your videos: the nocebo effect. So sad it had to go this way.”

Medical Hexing

Every time your doctor tells you that you have an “incurable” illness or that you’ll be on medication for the rest of your life or that you have a five-percent five-year survival, they’re essentially cursing you with a form of “medical hexing.” They don’t mean to. They’re not trying to harm you. They know not what they do.

Doctors think they’re telling it to you straight, that you deserve to know, that you should be realistic and make arrangements, if necessary. But when they say such things, they instill in your conscious and subconscious mind a belief that you won’t get well, and as long as the mind holds this negative belief, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe you’ll never recover, you won’t.

The Moral of This Story

After reading through the 3500+ case studies documented in the medical literature in the Spontaneous Remission Project, which was compiled by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, I now believe there’s no such thing as an incurable illness. If you or someone you love is suffering from a “chronic,” “incurable,” or “terminal” illness and you want to optimize the chance for spontaneous remission, you have to start by cleansing your mind of any negative beliefs that will sabotage your self-healing efforts. My upcoming book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself offers tips for how you can change your negative beliefs to positive ones in order to optimize your chances".

What do you think? What do you believe?

"Slaying the Dragon" - Dealing with Low Self Esteem

This is possibly the most potent and destructive limiting belief of them all. I believe that having low self esteem is at the root of many of our social problems.  If you don`t feel good about yourself; If you don`t value yourself; if you don`t feel you are a worthy person, it becomes very difficult to give those gifts to other people. I believe one of the most valuable things you can give to someone else is the gift of raising their self esteem. Certainly as a parent, there can be no finer gift you can give to your child than that of a healthy self esteem. It is far more important than any amount of material possessions. In today`s have-it-all, instant gratification society, it seems all too easy for many parents to substitute the tangible for the intangible.

 We live in an age of unprecedented wealth and opportunity. The media is constantly encouraging us to lavish the latest “stuff” on our children. The message being that if we don`t, we are not being good parents, we don`t love our children enough! A family I know very well has a son who said to them whilst on holiday in America, “If you really loved me you`d buy me this watch”. (He already owned five at home which he rarely wore!) The creation of a healthy self esteem is a product of the right environment and a loving relationship, not an unlimited bank account!

Why is it important?

The danger of low self esteem can be seen in many of society`s misfits. Remember when you were in school. Wasn`t there always a classroom bully? Did anyone actually like this person? The answer was invariably no. Many people pretended to be their friends in order to escape being bullied themselves. Bullies, thugs and loudmouths were, and still are, universally unpopular. So why would they behave in such a way?

They do it because being the way they are gives them a feeling of significance and at a deep level everyone needs to feel significant. Some achieve this through academia, by being the straight “A” student. Others get that feeling by excelling at sport while still others make people laugh. The reality is that none of this actually works unless it is built on a healthy foundation. For many people, it is merely papering over the cracks. Why else would many celebrity superstars press the self destruct button when they appear to have it all?  

In the U.S.A back in the 1930s, the public enemy number one was a gangster called John Dillinger. When the law finally caught up with him and he was cornered, his last act of defiance was to break into a house, put a gun to the heads of the occupants and scream,

“Do you know who I am??”

 When they failed to answer through sheer terror, he said,

“I`m John Dillinger … and don`t you forget it!”

 Even to the very end he still had the need to feel significant. When you are empty inside, carrying a weapon gives you an instant feeling of significance. Being quick with a cutting put down or a biting sarcastic quip gives you an instant feeling of significance. The only problem is, you can never raise your self esteem by damaging someone else’s. The people who truly feel good about themselves have no need to prove anything.

 Have you ever been involved in a group discussion were people have been vying to have their point of view heard and accepted? Where there was clearly an argument to be “won”?

 If you have the facts, and you know the person holding court hasn`t, isn`t it tempting to boost your ego and score some public points at their expense? The fact is, you don`t make yourself bigger by making others smaller. If you feel the need to win arguments and win fights to make you feel good, then there is clearly something missing.

“Why can`t you be smart like your brother?”

So if self esteem is so important, where exactly does it come from?  How you feel about yourself to a very large degree stems from how others feel about you.  You were first exposed to the notion of self esteem when you were a child.  You didn`t know it at the time, but it became clear that for you to feel good, other people were involved.  How you felt about yourself was largely determined by how your parents thought about you and more importantly, how they communicated that feeling to you. After all, what did you know about you, about life, about anything?

 Everything you knew for certain was taught to you by your parents or guardians. You had no history, no reference points, no understanding of logic. If you were told something, you just believed it as the truth. Imagine growing up listening to this,

“You are such a clumsy boy! Can`t you do anything right?”

“Why can`t you be like your brother. He is always a good boy!”

“You are such a stupid girl. You just don`t listen!”

If you were to listen to that on a regular basis, how do you think you would feel? Good about yourself? Or would you feel that you were obviously stupid or clumsy? To many people, those comments might seem fairly innocuous; just a slip of the tongue that anyone might be guilty of. After all, we are all human. Unfortunately, it is because we are human that these things happen. We often don`t think about what we are saying and very few of us consider the consequences of those words. The result is that those kind of poisonous programmes are planted at an early age and proceed to do their damage during those critical formative years.

It is said that by the time the average child reaches the age of 18 yrs. old they have heard the words, “No!” and “You can`t!” 148,000 times! Their personal belief systems about what they can and cannot do are well and truly programmed.

There was one little girl who grew up thinking her name was “Laura Dammit” because her parents had used that expression so many times when chastising her! You may remember the model and actress Paula Hamilton who became famous for advertising the Volkswagen Golf some years ago. Here was a stunningly beautiful woman who was successful and wealthy and sabotaged her success and her life by becoming addicted to drink and drugs. She once told an interviewer that she knew by the age of 4 yrs. old she would fail. What kind of childhood would create such a self fulfilling prophecy?

  If you add on to that negative programming further put downs about their behaviours and capabilities, it becomes clear why the average teenager has a well developed sense of inferiority and low self esteem. It is from then onwards that they try to compensate and attempt to achieve significance in the world through other means.

Heroes recognise where real self esteem comes from. They recognise that until you feel good about yourself for who you are, not what you have done, you cannot build real self esteem in others. Once you have slain the dragon of low self esteem, you will feel liberated and be on a quest to free others.

Think of your circle of influence? Who do you know who could benefit from a self esteem boost today? For something so small, it can have a tremendous impact.  

“It was nothing!”

An ex girlfriend of mine was shopping (one of her favourite hobbies!) and as she went to the check - out to pay, the person at the till commented upon her dress saying how great it looked. You would be amazed at what an impact that had!

An unsolicited compliment from a complete stranger. Wow! It somehow has more potency than a compliment from a good friend. After all, this person had nothing to gain from what she said. She just gave a gift to a stranger. Has that ever happened to you? Isn`t it remarkable how it makes you feel? By the way, my partner responded in the only way you should respond to a compliment, by saying “thank you”. Have you noticed that the most common response tends to be something like,

“It was nothing”

“You shouldn`t have”

“Oh, this…it`s just something I threw on!”

“Don`t mention it”

All of which are lies! If you have worked hard cooking a lovely meal for someone and they compliment you on it and you respond with a “don`t mention it”. The next time maybe they won`t! It seems to be an all too common trait of being unable to accept a well meaning compliment. If your self esteem is good enough, you accept it with thanks. 

Self Esteem Building Tips –

1.     Build your self esteem by compiling a “success log”. This is a really powerful exercise. Start by writing down everything you have ever done that you were proud of. It is important to log everything! Go back as far as you can remember. When I began compiling my “success log” I even included my cycling proficiency badge! To many people it would seem trivial, but remember, this isn`t for anyone else, this is for you! You will be amazed at how long a list you can create. Once you have started, it will keep on growing as you add to it on a regular basis. Whenever you feel the need for a self esteem boost, just look at your “Success log” to remind yourself just how good you really are!

2.     Get into the habit of regular “self praise”. Whenever you do anything well, give yourself a mental pat on the back. Don`t wait for others to do it for you.

3.     Remember to feed yourself with regular positive self talk, especially when the dragon of self doubt rears his ugly head.

4.     Learn to accept compliments

5.     Learn to give more compliments

6.     Look after yourself. It`s hard to have healthy self esteem if you look and feel unkempt and unfit.

7.     Spend as much time as possible around good, positive people.

8.     Read books that will inspire and motivate you.

Source: "Natural Born Heroes" - Brian Gibbons

Key Quote

"Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment"  - Thomas Carlyle 

If laughter is the best medicine, why wait!