Failure is the Only Option

I want to talk about failure.

I am really proud of myself right now because I just passed pathophysiology.

Third time’s a charm!

Yup, I failed this class twice before I could pass it.

It’s not because I couldn’t learn it.

It’s because I didn’t prioritize it.

So I failed.

💛

I couldn’t pass an algebra test until I was in college.

I was in all advanced classes, skipped two grades, and was deemed Smart by everyone who could test me.

I started working for AOL around the time I was trying to pass pre-algebra in 7th grade.

I cried after every test, even while I was being published in books about kids and the Internet.

I took the same algebra class for nearly a decade before it finally made sense in my brain.

(Turns out I have ADD and dyscalcula. I didn’t learn this about myself until my 30s.)

💛

I ran a paddleboard yoga business for 3 years until the city shut me down on a municipal technicality.

(Now they let anyone practice yoga in the harbor.)

💛

I dated men for years knowing the relationship wasn’t working before we broke up.

💛

I made so, so many terrible cakes before I became known for my baking.

💛

I fell tens of thousands of times before I mastered the headstand.

💛

You could call these failures.

Especially with classes, they very literally are.

But it’s not the kind of failure that stops me.

These are the kind of failures that make me sit up taller and look around and think, something’s off here.

Something needs to be fixed.

I need to make this easier on myself.

I need to set up systems.

💛

This last round, with the class, rather than waiting until the last possible day to get all the homework down, I spent an hour a day on it.

Um....I mean, it’s so obvious, but it took me THREE TRIES to prove to myself that this was what I had to do to succeed at this class.

It’s hard to give something I don’t love an hour a day (this class was literally looking at all the ways you can die, all the stuff you should never google image search).

I want to spend an hour working 1:1 with a client

Or recording a yoga class

Or creating a meditation

Or walking my dog on the beach

But I also want to be an acupuncturist.

So I did it.

I failed until I didn’t.

Up Next:

1. How To Overcome Decision Paralysis

2. Live Coaching: Psychic & Dream Interpreter Stacey Caldwell

3. 5 Ways to Improve Focus and Avoid Distractions

Check out more business coaching blogs here!