What was your most embarrassing moment?\u00a0 If you couldn\u2019t come up with at least three of them, you are holding back on life and possibly the success you\u2019ve been dreaming about.<\/p>\n
This all became clear to me at a conference where these heavy hitting CEOs started their meeting by describing their most embarrassing moments.\u00a0 As they went around the room regaling each other with stories about showing up late to speak at a conference only to run their speech for the wrong group or bad mouthing a customer in a restaurant only to discover that their team was having lunch in the next booth, I realized that I had been holding back.\u00a0 I had not been participating in life and I had been scared of doing anything remotely risky for fear of failing.<\/p>\n
Failure simply means that what you had intended didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0\u00a0 You had a commitment to a specific outcome \u2013 and it didn\u2019t happen the way you intended.\u00a0 That is all.<\/p>\n
![\"feeling](\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/rocket-failure.jpg\")
If you\u2019re like most people, you take what\u2019s happened, and you make it mean that YOU are bad, wrong, not enough, a failure and the myriad other negative conversations that swirl around in your head.\u00a0 This kind of self-talk might feel like a deserved \u201cpunishment\u201d for not being the hero you set out to be, but in reality, it works against you.<\/p>\n
Instead, consider that the outcome is nothing more than that.\u00a0 An outcome.\u00a0 Instead of making it be about you, or making it something significant, think about it as a clue or a stepping stone that will get you closer to the desired outcome.\u00a0 Think of yourself as a scientist; testing one hypothesis after another.\u00a0 There\u2019s no right or wrong, there are just strategies and outcomes.\u00a0 Tweak your tactics and see what outcomes they generate.\u00a0 Remember the old Thomas Edison quote \u201c\u201cI have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Play the opposites game.<\/strong>\u00a0 The one really fantastic thing about FEELING like a failure is that it puts your focus on what you DON\u2019T want.\u00a0 Use this information to identify exactly what you DO want.\u00a0 On a piece of paper \u2013 at the top of the page, write down what happened (that you didn\u2019t want).\u00a0 Now start writing down what you DO want.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n See how that works?\u00a0 This will get your brain focused on what you want and then tweaking the actions you need to take to get to the desired outcome.<\/p>\n Start with the end in mind<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now, let\u2019s try something completely different. You\u2019ve heard this advice from the \u201c7 Habits\u201d books.\u00a0 But I\u2019d like to take this opportunity to explain a little about the science behind it.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0In the above example, we took the problem, solution approach.\u00a0 In other words, we took what happened and looked for opportunities to tweak it.\u00a0 With this strategy, we\u2019re going to do the opposite.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to take what happened and completely set it aside. \u00a0\u00a0The rationale behind this strategy is that focusing on \u201cfixing\u201d the problem will just get you into a spiral of fixing and may NOT actually deliver the desired result.<\/p>\n In this strategy, you\u2019re going to create the desired outcome \u2013 on paper. \u00a0What does it look like, feel like, smell like, etc.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take the above example of the survey respondents.\u00a0 Instead of focusing on the number of survey respondents \u2013 go BIG.\u00a0 Take a step back and ask yourself why are you doing a survey?\u00a0 What do you want to learn?\u00a0 What will you do with the information.\u00a0 Step way back and create the desired outcome.<\/p>\n NOW \u2013 this is the exciting part \u2013 work backwards from the outcome.\u00a0 Ask yourself \u2013 HOW did we achieve this outcome.\u00a0 Pretend that you are being interviewed by a reported who asked you \u201cHow did you achieve this amazing success?\u201d\u00a0 Now answer the question.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to get so wrapped up in what we\u2019re doing that we forget that most of life is just a game!\u00a0 You try one strategy and another.\u00a0 When you take yourself TOO seriously, you\u2019re not only missing out on the fun, you are HINDERING your innate creativity.<\/p>\n The next time you feel like a failure, try these two mind-shift exercises and see what opens up for you.<\/p>\n photo credit: jurvetson<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What was your most embarrassing moment?\u00a0 If you couldn\u2019t come up with at least three of them, you are holding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":10050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[428],"yoast_head":"\n\n
It\u2019s just a game<\/h2>\n