“If we are brave enough, often enough, we will fall.” – Brene Brown.

An experience we all tend to avoid encountering, failure in its most common sense has always been associated with negative connotations. Defined as a ‘lack of success’, for many the prospect of rising to a challenge (no matter how big or small) only to be met with unsatisfactory results can be daunting at the least and down-right terrifying at the best. But it needn’t be this way! Failing has been cited by some of the most successful people in the world as the ticket to eventual success and fulfilment! Read on for how you too can learn to shake off the fear that the prospect of failing elicits and use it to propel you to places you never thought possible.

Plan for the worst, expect the best
Whilst this saying may at first sound depressing, it is always a sure-fire way to ensure you have all your ducks in a row, ready to take whatever you’re working on/hoping to achieve to the next step or into another direction if initial plans do not succeed.

Start a journal
Here at Hip & Healthy, we are firm proponents of journaling, and what better way to track patterns in your own failures and successes than through this amazing personal development tool! Begin to document mistakes as well as successes and achievements, to evaluate the different areas of your life that may need to be directed down a different path or executed using a different approach.

Change your mindset
Whist we can attempt with all our might to change our mindset when it comes to failure, we have found that the best way to do this is to utilize the step above and start recording our failures and successes. Faced with a list of your errors in the past, with time, you should slowly be able to see how you have learned from them and how they have helped you in some way, shape or form to get to where you are today.

View failed decisions and outcomes as experiments
We all know that feeling of anxiety (and paralysis) that arises when we worry about making the perfect choice or not making the right one to get us to where we want to be. When we take the ‘final choice’ component out of the equation and instead view our decisions or outcomes as an ‘experiment’, more often than not you’ll find those feelings of dread and fear are nowhere near as intense. Certainly sounds less scary, right?

Feel the fear and do it anyway
One of the hardest things to do; staring fear, uncertainty and failure in the face can be a monumental feat for even the toughest of cookies, however like anything the more you do it, the easier it becomes! Whilst as human beings we are programmed to do whatever possible to avoid pain, standing up to unpleasant feelings when necessary and facing them head-on is the only way you will be able to realize the next step to take within your unique journey. Plus, feeling the fear and doing it anyway is an amazing achievement and absolutely necessary for starting again, rising strong and cultivating success in all areas of your life.

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