be a survivor
On Monday I wrote a blog post about recognizing the need to stay and create your own fresh start. A very close friend of mine reached out to me yesterday regarding the idea of starting again, which led to a really great conversation about failure and survival.
If you're reading this post, whether or not you realize it, you've failed at something and overcome it. Life, just like the ocean, is a series of high and low tides. Things in life will always ebb and flow, consisting of periods of lows and highs. The whole point is to really succeed just one time more than you fail. Fall down seven times, get up eight, right? That’s it. Life is full of failure, which is a really good thing, and life is full of success, which is also a really good thing. Success and Failure are two sides of the same coin. They cannot exist without the other.
Failure can ignite change and encourage growth. I’ve written plenty about failure, but that’s because it’s a thing that I believe should be embraced more. And we all know I’m not one to throw around the term “should” loosely. But by embracing failure, you are better equipped to handle it in the future. And trust me, there will be plenty more failures on the horizon.
The most beautiful thing about failure is overcoming it. Because once you overcome failure, it takes the sting out of it and removes the fear. There’s nothing more empowering than realizing that you’ve failed big and that you’ve survived. Whether it’s something as huge as a business endeavor going sour or a personal relationship breaking apart or something as small as a rec. league basketball game, it’s an incredible feeling to know that the worst thing that can happen is that things do not go as you expected them to go or that you didn’t achieve the result you expected. Humans tend to complicate things, but at the end of the day, it really is that simple-- things did not go as you had expected or as you had hoped they would.
I’m an extremely goal-oriented person, and I’ve been wrong just as (if not more) often than I’ve been right. But without all the times I’ve been wrong, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the times when things felt right. Failure's good in that way, too; it provides your internal compass with a little extra guidance in navigating your life path.
And that’s what the conversation with my friend was about: knowing that you’ve been through the worst-case scenario of a situation before and that you've made it through to the other side stronger and wiser. When you fail big, you learn big. You learn what worked and what didn’t work, what you liked and what you didn’t like, and what your specific needs are moving forward in the future.
Failing can be one of the best things to ever happen to a person because failure shows you just how gritty you can be. You caught a glimpse of rock bottom, you clawed your way out, and you know that if you ever came close to that again, you’d have the power to overcome it. Because you already have.
Let go of things that weigh you down, be kind to yourself when you fail, hold onto all the goodness that's in you, and use that survival as fuel to attack life with everything you've got. Be a survivor. You've already survived so much more than you realize.
Thank you so much for reading, and, as always, if you have any pressing questions or if you want to discuss something further with me, feel free to subscribe below or reach out to me on the “contact” page. I’m so grateful you're here and that I’ve been getting a lot of really challenging questions and even better feedback from a community all over the world. I couldn’t do this without you! So THANK YOU! I’m here for you, and I love hearing from you, too! You’re the best, and you have everything you need inside of you! Please believe it! Starve your ego, feed your soul - and follow your heart!