Does this sound familiar…

At times, life can feel overwhelming and your mind goes into a free-fall panic, down into a fairly dark place….

And then, do you ever worry that you’ve failed at something…?

Layer on top of that… the effects of the credit crunch… plus a ton of social media posts & inboxes full of endless advice about setting goals and new years resolutions.

If you’re already doubting yourself… does this all start to feel unsettling?

Those who follow me will know that my younger daughter struggles with emetophobia (which for her shows-up as a desire to run away when she thinks someone might be sick). This has led to daily school refusals, which in turn means that our home life has been erratic and emotional for a long time. In addition, the freezing cold weather that has dominated this January has meant horse ownership has been tricky. Admittedly these are first world problems, but layered on top of various health and money niggles the smallest of things can break the best of us.

A few weeks ago, all this showed up for me as thoughts that I had “failed” at so much:

- As a parent because my kids were finding life tough…

- At work because I wasn’t spending enough time in my business…

- And, more generally, I started to question what I was doing!

I paused and listened to my body. And, I noticed that my heart was racing faster than usual. My tummy was churning every time a worried thought surfaced, and I lacked the usual patience with those around me.

So how do you change these thoughts of failure?

What is fascinating is that no matter how many times people tell you that you’re doing okay, the only way you are going to fully take it on board is by believing it yourself…

So, how do you do that & what helped me to realise that I am more than good enough?

I want to share how you can change your thought processes so that you truly believe that you are NOT a failure…

But you need to appreciate that the answer is that the person who has to find the solution is YOU!

You need to work on finding out why the “failure” thoughts surface and how to reframe them.

What we all need is a new relationship with failure…

For me, this work started with some deep contemplation… which revealed that my worries came from a child part within me, who was desperately trying to do her best… it revealed a little girl within me who was still striving to gain love and support by pleasing others and doing stuff to make people proud. Instead that young part had to be shown that discovering what made her feel vulnerable, as well as what makes her feel safe, worthy and loved, is where the answer lay.

I reminded myself about two important life lessons:

1. Generally, human beings are fundamentally good people.

When loved ones “act out”, what is happening is that the person is struggling to cope with what’s going on in their environment. For me, my struggles related to an inability to work around the lack of control that is my daughter’s school refusal and the knock-on effect that has to our environment… to her sibling, to me and to my work. But, power comes from regaining control of the things that fill our cup and having compassion for each of us within the family unit.

2. What does failure actually mean?!

I looked up a definition of failure and it said a “lack of success”… but, that got me thinking… What is success? I believe that success is unique to all of us… we each have a different view of happiness, wealth, longevity, relationships, careers and giving back to the world. Therefore no one can define either success or failure for you. You define these terms for yourself!

Most importantly I saw on Instagram FAIL being described as:

- First

- Attempt

- In

- Learning!

It opened my eyes to the fact that these things we call “failures” are in fact part of life’s lessons. They are things we should view with compassion and kindness and we journey through our days, weeks, months and years.

Isn’t it interesting, in a world where we are all trying our best and none of us are perfect… that mistakes will always happen.

So, why does the word “mistake” seem to attract more compassion than “failure”?

Doesn’t everyone deserve second chances…?

None of us set out to fail, just like none of us make mistakes on purpose…

So, as we enter the second month of 2023, if you haven’t moved the needle yet on any of your goals or projects, if you feel quite far away from success, don’t criticise yourself. Instead, look afresh at what you’ve learnt, accept that you are not a failure and give yourself a second chance! That is where you’ll learn to make peace with failure!