Make Failure Your Friend!

How many of us have a fear of failure? 

Could you see your failure in a positive light?  

Fear of failure can have a huge negative impact on how we live our lives. It can stop us from taking risks or trying new things. For perfectionists, this fear can be even more debilitating.

As Brene Brown said in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection

“Perfectionism is self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Failure is seen as unimaginable. Most of us want to avoid negative feelings like shame, judgment, and blame, which go hand in hand with failure.

This week Gatorade released a new commercial that turns that idea that failure is all bad upside-down. In the ad “Make Defeat Your Fuel” sports stars, Michael Jordan, Peyton and Eli Manning, and Serena Williams reveal their greatest failures which ultimately motivated them toward their greatest victories. The ad then highlights Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan at the end of February’s Super Bowl where the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots. Click here to take a look.

We have a choice - either let failure be what stops us, or use it to motivate us toward success. 

This speaks to the idea of Mindset by Psychologist and Author, Carol Dweck, Ph.D. In her book she describes the new psychology of success with what she calls a growth mindset. When we have a growth mindset it means we have a strong desire to learn, we embrace challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, learn from criticism, and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others. 

In other words, with a growth mindset we don’t fear failures, instead we use them to create better opportunities. 

For those of us who have an overwhelming fear of failure, we are operating from a fixed mindset, which means we avoid challenges, give up easily, often see effort as fruitless, ignore negative feedback, and can feel threatened by the success of other people.

With a fixed mindset, we stay stuck; with a growth mindset, failure can be our friend.

One of my new favorite books is Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. Sheryl is the author of the book “Lean In” from 2013. Option B Was co-written by Adam Grant, author and psychology professor at Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. 

Together they wrote Option B following the tragic and sudden death of Sheryl's husband in 2015. She shares heart-wrenching and inspiring personal stories about facing adversity, building resilience, and finding joy with the help of positive psychology (PP)and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In Chapter 9 of her book she talks candidly about "failing at work." Sheryl returned to work as a widow, single mother, and mourning her husband. Through this "new normal" she learned the importance of a growth mindset.

In Option B she talks about how important it is for all of us to learn from our mistakes. She points out how initial failure can be more effective for creating future innovation than success. Having a culture where people feel safe talking about mistakes can create opportunities for new discoveries and creative ideas that can lead to more overall success. 

As a small business owner and clinical therapist I keep a picture of "famous failures" above my office desk as a simple reminder to keep my perfectionism in check.

If I pay attention I can see examples of growth following failure all around me. When my son has a fantastic little league baseball game, hitting his first grand slam,  I realized he had spent extra time focused on batting practice following a game where he struck out every time at bat. 

With a growth mindset, failure can be your friend.

If you are interested in checking out the books mentioned here, you can go to my resources page of my website maximize-wellness.com for these and more helpful resources.

Also, if you want to learn more about counseling with CBT and PP feel free to check out my website or reach out any time for a free consultation! :-) Cara

13 Reasons Why: Good, bad or maybe….

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbor came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "Maybe," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," said his neighbor."Maybe," he replied. The next day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbor again offered sympathy on his misfortune. "Maybe," answered the farmer. The next day the army came to draft young men, but seeing the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbor congratulated the farmer. "Maybe," he said.

In this story, every situation the farmer encountered was looked upon as either wonderful, or as bad luck, by the neighbor.  The Farmer, on the other hand, did not rush to judgment; what seemed like opportunities turned into challenges, and challenges turned became blessings.

We are so quick to judge situations, people, and life circumstances as good or bad, black or white. 

Unlike the farmer, we don’t find ourselves living in the space of “maybe” very often. Just take a look at social media posts, have a conversation about politics, or listen to a news story, and you easily see how quickly we can be polarized to one side or the other.  As a therapist I see extreme black and white thinking at the core of many of my clients’ symptoms and suffering.

Recently there has been a lot of heated buzz around a new Netflix show, 13 Reasons Why. Everyone seems to have a very definitive opinion one-way or the other.

As a mom of a 13-year-old girl, I admit I had a very negative initial gut reaction when she told me she was watching it. I read a few articles on how the show glorifies suicide and neglects to address mental health concerns of the main character. I also received a warning letter from our school district which led me to formulate the opinion that this was not a good thing for my 7^th grader to be watching.

That being said, I also realize that controlling what she sees is not an easy task, so I decided that the best course of action was to watch the show myself.

After a few episodes I was concerned that this show portrayed Hannah (the main character who commits suicide) as a hero who successfully pulls off what could be considered a “revenge fantasy.” I saw danger in the idea that the show was show was glorifying suicide. I was also uncomfortable with the graphic rape scenes and the step-by-step portrayal of Hannah’s death.

After a few episodes, I found myself invested in the characters and noticed a shift in my perception of the show. I was enjoying the series more than I wanted to admit. I realized this show is so much more than just about suicide. When I looked closer into the complexity of each character I saw an opportunity.  By using the characters in the show I was able to start a dialogue about other topics that my middle-school-aged daughter may or may not be open to discussing otherwise, such as homophobia, self-harm (non suicidal), drinking, and sex. I was able to better understand her opinions, values and experiences around these subjects as well as address the things she, by the seventh grade, has already experienced or witnessed, such as bullying, inappropriate sexualizing, and peer betrayal.  

As a mental health professional and as a mom, I found the lack of awareness of the parents in the show, troubling, although not surprising. Mental health treatment also was pretty much non-existent throughout the series, except for a reference to prior therapy and medication by Clay, another main character.

As I began to see this show as more of an opportunity to get to learn more about my daughter and talk with her about difficult topics, I remembered my early years as a social worker.  Back in 1990’s I worked as a mental health specialist on an adolescent psychiatric inpatient hospital unit. The show My So Called Life was considered a bit controversial and tackled taboo and challenging topics like sex, drinking, drugs, and bullying, not unlike 13 Reasons Why. While working at the hospital we often showed VHS tapes of My So Called Life and then facilitated therapy discussion groups with the teens about the show. By talking about difficult and personal issues from the perspective of characters, we were able to help the teens process situations and challenges they were facing in their lives and do it from a “safer” space.

Just this week news came out that Netflix is not done with the series and will be putting out a season two of 13 Reasons Why. Before deciding if this is good or bad, I choose to look at this as an opportunity to dialogue further with my daughter.

Like most things in life, it’s neither black nor white, but a really strong maybe.

*I urge anyone reading this article who maybe experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide to reach out for help. National SuicidePrevention lifeline 1-800-273-8255.

Article also in Today Parents Community