Failures are not a problem. Mistakes are not a problem. A mistake is only a failure if you learn nothing and stop trying!
So many of us have such a fear of failing at something that it keeps us stuck. Stuck in a rut that we know is not healthy for us. That rut can be physical, mental, spiritual, etc. A spiritual rut like scrolling on your phone watching reels instead of reading your devotional…on the same phone! A physical rut like reaching for the chips out of the cupboard versus eating a banana. A mental rut of not being motivated to grow or change. An emotional rut of feeling the same feelings about the same people the same time of year. There is a lot to unpack here on mindset, but I wanted to focus more on the fear.
Sometimes we think that fear comes from a failure that we experienced in the past. But in reality, that fear comes more from our response or the response of the people around us to that perceived failure. Most of us when we were learning to ride a bike fell off and skinned our knees. But either our motivation to ride a bike was high, or we had someone encouraging us to get back on and try again. Fear of failure was instilled somewhere along the lines where we either did not have someone cheering us on, or we let the overwhelm of the situation bench us.
It might have been something that you were mocked for as a teenager. It might be a musical performance that you were doing and froze and could not finish. It might have been a sport you were trying at a camp and fell flat on your face and got up and never tried again.
Why do we look at these as failures? Because we didn’t move past it! We got stuck and stopped trying. Somewhere in the past we either listened to ourselves or to others tell us that we “failed” at it. In reality, we did make a mistake. Mistakes do happen. For most people, we don’t do things perfect the first time. I am pushing myself in so many new directions this year. I have been taking steps out of my comfort zone and trying to teach myself new skills! It would have been so easy to stop after the first mistake was made. I undid my first knitted scarf at least 5 times before I figured out how to get a consistent stitch!
A mistake is only a failure if you learn nothing and then stop trying. The failure is in the STOP, not in the mistake!