What do you think about failure?

Old 01-05-2009, 07:41 AM
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What do you think about failure?

I read this today and it got me thinking about failing...

''What do you believe about failure?

The ego wounded part of ourselves, the left-brain part of ourselves that has been programmed with many false beliefs, often believes that:


"If I fall, I am a failure."
"If I fail, I am stupid."
"If I fail, no one will like me or value me."
"If I fail, then there is no point in ever trying again."
"If I fail, it brands me for life as incompetent."
"If I fail, then everyone who thought I was smart will now think I am stupid."
"If I fail, I will have made a fool of myself."


On the other hand, the loving adult part of us - our right brain, open, creative and learning part of us - generally believes that:


"If I fail, then I just need to work harder, to put in more effort."
"If I fail, I will have learned valuable lessons that will eventually lead to success."
"Failure is a part of life. No one succeeds without some failure."
"Failure does not at all reflect on my worth as a person. I am intrinsically worthy, regardless of success or failure."
"Failure offers me incredible opportunities to think outside the box, to think creatively. Let's get to work!"
"I love learning and I love challenges. What I do is not about success or failure - it is about the joy of creativity, learning and expressing who I am."


Which way of thinking prevails within you? What are the consequences to you of allowing yourself to think from your wounded self instead of from your Loving adult?'' - Inner bonding, Dr Margaret Paul.

I always strived to succeed at everything. From a very young age, I intrinsically knew that to be worthy of notice, respect and to avoid criticism I had to succeed, and be perfect.

I always studied and studied hard, I aced all my exams at school and was even awarded a prize for the best results in my year. I carried this on into my further study too. I should've been happy, took pride in my accomplishments. But I never. I was miserable, I felt alone, isolated and depressed. Even that feeling was indictive of my failure to enjoy life, be a happy child and give the impression of a perfect family to others, and so I chastised myself for that too.

I told myself my feelings were dismissable.

I remember the first time I failed at something. An English literature exam, when I got the result, I thought it was an error, how could I have been graded so low?! It wasn't my result. I went home and to bed and cried for hours, I felt so low and dirty. I wanted to quit everything.

I did, I stopped all the courses I was studying and started new ones, and I made sure I passed those.

It was in other areas of my life though too, like my relationships. In all my time, I never ended a relationship. I would hang on to it despite the abuse, lack of love, constant fighting etc. If I just changed myself or stopped acting in such a way, if I stopped talking about certain things and become more like him, he would love me and we would stay together.

They always finished with me. Even my mum and sister have never ended a relationship. My mum and dad have been together since they were 17, my sister and BIL since age 15. I felt if my relationships ended, I had failed. Each time that eventually happened, I told myself such and made better efforts next time.

I finally broke the chain and ended it with my exabf almost a year ago, I finally said enough before they did. It was empowering!

Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Old 01-05-2009, 08:02 AM
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It was always a big red stamp FAIL in my mind! lol! For years I couldn't do good enough, just coming through that now thank goodness!

So what did you label it if anything?

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Old 01-05-2009, 08:04 AM
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I think my biggest lesson about failure came when I got divorced.

I had stayed in my marriage and even had a second child all the while knowing it was an abysmal relationship. I clung to the good times for dear life and minimized the reality of what I was actually getting out of the relationship. I just knew that if he would change everything would be peachy!!! I worked every angle to get him to change. And man, I had a lot of angles (thanks Mom and Dad!!).

Admitting to myself and my family and my kids that the marriage was over was, at first, devastating to me. I really thought I had failed. The word failure came up over and over again in conversations. I sank very low in my mind.

I think the thing that finally allowed me to embrace this "failure" was the relief I felt that it was over. It was a huge acceptance thing. I realized that just staying together in a lousy marriage was not a success!! That would be a worse failure. And since our marriage simply could not have been a success I had to accept the failure. Would I want to ride in a rocket ship that really didn't work correctly? Or would I rather know it had a systems failure and take it apart and start again???

So I guess I came to accept failure as necessary.

And my divorce has been so very successful. It's crazy but I swear to God!! My boys are decent relatively untroubled human beings full of warmth and love. I get along fine with my ex and his wife and their daughter (I even babysit her on occasion). He can still drive me cuckoo just like any "family member" but I deal.

It was accepting failure that was hard for me. I would say in all my recovery and therapy work accepting reality always has to come first for me, and never comes easily (hmmmmmmm? wonder why? child of alcoholic maybe?? ;-)

I work hard to succeed at whatever I'm attempting - but I accept failure, especially if I tried (I'm not even gonna say "tried my best" because that isn't always the case nor always possible!) but if I tried hard and failed - well so be it. Acceptance. Onwards and upwards!
Peace-
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Old 01-05-2009, 08:25 AM
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Oh Lilyflower, that post was eerily spooky - I could have written most of it from my own experience, including the feelings and reaction when I failed my first ever exam at University!

One thing I would add, and that I am still struggling with, is the overwhelming feeling of shame I have that accompanies any kind of 'failure' - real or imagined. I am trying to kick the label of failure I put on myself, to learn that to fail at something doesn't automatically mean I am a failure!
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Old 01-05-2009, 09:13 AM
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I was never allowed to fail. It just wasn't an option! So imagine my frustration when I did- indeed - fail at some things. My first marriage failed and I was horrified and terrified by what people would think about me. I had FAILED at being a wife, at being married. It was my most dirty and dark secret for awhile.

It took being in recovery for awhile to understand that I had also grown tremendously during that time. The marriage might have failed, true, but I myself was not a failure, and I had actually learned some important life lessons in the process.

Now when I have things in my life that don't work out the way I wish they had, I always look for the growth opportunity. Sometimes it's easy to see and refreshing, other times I am struggling against it and say thru clenched teeth "Oh goodie, another fabulous growth opportunity!"

Regardless of how I view it, the life lesson is there for the taking.

Great topic, Lilyflower!
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Old 01-05-2009, 10:19 AM
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Originally Posted by anvilhead View Post
I lived for a long time feeling less than, not good enough, never up to par....i became very needy, clingly, desperate for attention. "hunted" men as a starving man would a rabbit. tried to "fit in"

and then one day it was like, wait a damn minute, what is so horribly wrong me AS IS? i've been trying to bend and morph myself to what i think others want, and THAT ain't working, so maybe i'll just try being the best ME i can, warts and all.....i've been a lot happier since then!
Oh my God, me too me too!! I always felt like a third wheel in my family. That nothing I did was worthy of praise or recognition, nothing! I wanted to sit an exam to a certain school when I was entering secondary (11/12yrs old) my mum wouldn't let me even try because she said I wouldn't pass. I spent the next 10 years proving to her I was smart enough. I wanted to be a musician, play in an orchestra, but it was always, no, keep that as a hobby, music never got any one anywhere etc etc.

I was incredibly clingy and craved love in any form shape size, I willingly accepted it as soon as I found it and turned most relationships I had into a big romantic love affair. I was desperate to be recognised and loved.

Now my self confidence is top, I feel free and perfect just as I am, excellent feeling, but that fear of failing, not living up to standard etc kept me hindered and wallowing in depression for over half of my life to date.

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Old 01-05-2009, 10:22 AM
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Originally Posted by bookwyrm View Post
Oh Lilyflower, that post was eerily spooky - I could have written most of it from my own experience, including the feelings and reaction when I failed my first ever exam at University!

One thing I would add, and that I am still struggling with, is the overwhelming feeling of shame I have that accompanies any kind of 'failure' - real or imagined. I am trying to kick the label of failure I put on myself, to learn that to fail at something doesn't automatically mean I am a failure!
((((Book)))) you are fab, you are strong! Like Cats says, think of the lessons learnt. I think now that as long as I see the lesson and learn from it, nothing has been a waste of my time or commitment. Each day leads me to progress to who I am now. I am who I am now, because of my failures yes, but more importantly because I learn from them

Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx :ghug2
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Old 01-05-2009, 03:09 PM
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failure to me, is an opportunity to grow. i'm so glad i failed at trying to fix my xah. that was a good failure.

i like to think of failure as really meaning.....not yet, jeri, we have some work to do first.
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Old 01-05-2009, 03:20 PM
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Failure has always been the enemy for me, oh gosh.

It's an area that I am constantly, constantly working on.....I have a quote sticky on my desktop that says "If we're not failing at something on a regular basis, we're just not trying hard enough." Translation: The more we try, the more opportunities we have to succeed and fail, increasing our odds and growing bigger and stronger in the process.

In many sports, especially certain martial arts, one of the first things they teach you is how to fall properly so you won't get hurt when you get knocked down. Because you will. It's not an admission of failure, it's a fact of life

But OH SO hard for me! Accepting that the very best people in the world fail, and that's how they calibrate themselves for the next go, is a leap of faith that I continue to work on. I can still hear the voices from my childhood, reminding me of all I am not. Working on putting them into a jar and sealing it up like Ann Lamott...
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Old 01-05-2009, 03:26 PM
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I used to have a big problem with accepting "failure at" something as not being the equivalent of "being a failure." A lot of that is a result of my dysfunctional childhood. I have finally learned the difference! It's taken a great deal of work but I've gotten there.

For instance, an unfortunate side effect of leaving and divorcing xAH was that I almost unconsiously allowed myself to build up a whole mess of credit card debt. To the point where I really have to take some drastic actions to deal with it now. When I finally realized what a hole I had dug for myself, my first thoughts were along the lines of I'm a failure, I can't do anything right, blah, blah blah. Well the second line of thought, almost immediate BTW, was yup, you dug a hole, that was pretty stupid, now what can you do to get out of that hole?

I failed at managing my money wisely. I am not a failure.
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Old 01-05-2009, 07:22 PM
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I hate failing, I let myself fail in high school after being a straight a student my entire life. I started in college 12 years later and had some problems getting into the swing, now I hate failing, anything below a B to me is B-A-D!!!! Simply because I know I am capable of more.

Maybe that's why I've started taking a real hard look at my marriage. Maybe unknowingly I know I can do better for me.
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Old 01-05-2009, 09:04 PM
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that is just perfect!

I have to agree with some of the pp. Failing is just a chance to grow.
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