I want to talk about Failure! Yes, I said it – Failure.
There has been much that has helped shape my life – people, experiences, events, etc. but the biggest by far has been my training in NLP. For me Neuro Linquistic Programming (NLP) is about modeling excellence in communication (internal and external). External is how you deliver your message so that is received the way it is intended. External is also about being able to clarify what’s not being said. Ever hear of the jokes going around for a husband to beware when his wife answers “fine”? Fine can mean a whole lot!
It’s the internal communication or what you say to yourself with your thoughts that gets me jazzed! I want spend some time talking about what I’ve learned and how it’s helped me, in hopes that it can open a door of learning for you.
Here’s a tip for you regarding failure. A presupposition of NLP is “There is only feedback”. I automatically change the label when I hear “failure” to “feedback”. Just by changing the word I feel different about what I am doing. Failure implies that I have stopped moving or that it is the end to something, that the door is closed. On the flip side, feedback implies that I am taking action and I am monitoring my progress towards my goal and moving forward. There is still movement and the door is open. Just like when you plant a garden, you have to watch your plants; you have to be flexible with how you tend the garden. If you have bugs you might apply some sort of insecticide. If the plants are drooping, then you might water more frequently – the key is you change what you do.
As women, the easiest and fastest way to create guilt is to label everything you have not done, or not done well according to you, as failure. Then when we DO learn how to do something better we aren’t proud of ourselves, we beat ourselves up because we should have known better. Give yourself a break – you didn’t know!
With feedback you take the information and incorporate it and learn from it. You then grow and improve and move towards what you want. Feedback is an opportunity is what I say.
Be good to yourself.
