Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success podcast, episode twenty-six. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

The truth is, if you’re doing something, anything, you will make mistakes. It’s part of being human. The old me somehow expected perfection and nothing less would do. When things did go wrong, I would be harder on myself than anyone else could ever be. It was a protection mechanism because I was embarrassed that I hadn’t met my own personal standards, not recognizing that I had set myself up for the impossible. 

In this episode, we’ll explore why failure is necessary because we learn the most when things don’t go according to plan. All our experiences help shape who we are, and who we are becoming. It’s how we build confidence and show up to do our best work. 

We’re all afraid of failing. And frankly, failing sucks. We’re afraid we’ll say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, so to protect ourselves, we say or do nothing. We’re afraid that people will find out something about us that will give them ammunition to attack us, so we play it safe. But that’s gray zone living. If you’re living a life of impact, you will make mistakes. It shows that you’re someone who is constantly trying to get it together. 

Failure is necessary, so we must learn from it. These are the things I need to be reminded of, because the old me was very good at beating myself up more than anyone else could. It was my coping mechanism. My way of protecting myself. I expected myself to be perfect. And then I felt embarrassed, sometimes even shame, when I didn’t measure up. I would get so upset at myself because I had made a mistake or done something wrong. 

Now I can recognize that the old me was necessary. The girl I was then, has helped me become who I am now, much more self-aware and compassionate, and willing to risk being embarrassed at times. I wouldn’t be me without her. I could never have confidently shown up as I have and done my best work. 

I’m now much more willing to accept me for me, knowing that sometimes I will disappoint myself. I’ve learned I can be proud of my work, but I can’t tie my worth to it, because that can be fleeting. It’s nice to be appreciated, but we can’t let all that outside praise get to our heads. One person may love what we’ve done, and another will find it lacking. 

Similarly, you are not your worst moment, or your worst mistake. In the midst of your shortcomings, it might feel like the end of the world, or that you won’t ever recover from that embarrassment. But everything, even your worst moments, are temporary. 

Grace and accountability can coexist. Grace makes you forgive yourself for your mistakes. And accountability lets you know that the lesson learned must be remembered, and those mistakes can’t be frequent. 

Failure is life’s greatest teacher. Without it, we miss out on those lessons. But the only way we truly fail is to learn nothing from what we experience. 

Most of us desperately want to avoid failure as long as possible. It’s natural. Nobody wants to fail. And in order to prevent possible failure, we come up with reasons why we shouldn’t do the things we want to do. It’s why we abandon our ideas as soon as we get any type of negative feedback. But no rarely means that it’s impossible, and no rarely means never. Usually, if someone tells you no, what it really means is not right now, or not in that way. So keep that in mind. 

There are ways to get past negative feedback and learning these can give you a little more perseverance when you’d normally call it quits. Negative feedback is a signal to adjust your idea, not abandon it. We might need to do something differently. And if things didn’t work out the way we thought they would, we might need to learn more, or figure out a better plan first. But we want to succeed right from the beginning. 

My suggestion is to let go of that need to be amazing, in favor of taking action. You’re going to make mistakes when you start something new. Your first draft will be terrible. You’ll feel awkward and out of place. And when you surround yourself with people who are better than you, you’ll probably feel less intelligent and completely without talent. 

But so what? We’re in this for the long haul. There will be plenty of time to become amazing, so don’t deny yourself opportunities. Don’t prevent your own progress. There’s enough people in the world who will do those things for you.

The most important skills we need to develop these days are adaptation and resilience. Every experience is just a way of showing you what didn’t work. There’s no reason to fear failure. 

Everyone’s journey is different. So be open to the possibility of considering that you can create what you want for yourself. Keep track of your progress and recognize your own thought patterns by keeping a journal. Make a habit of setting aside time to reflect on your goals and your progress. 

You can have your own hopes, desires, goals, and dreams. They’re all yours, big or small. And they are valuable, simply because you value them. You’re allowed to want more for yourself, for no other reason than it makes you happy. You don’t need anyone’s permission. And you certainly shouldn’t have to rely on anyone else’s support as the catalyst to get you there.

So many of us struggle with what others think of the goals that we have for ourselves. And instead of chasing our dreams, we let them die. We feel guilt, shame, and fear for doing something for ourselves, instead of for everyone else. We let fear run our lives, preventing us from moving forward. 

We’re afraid of embarrassment. We’re afraid of so many things when it comes to our dreams, mostly that we’re not enough somehow. It’s okay to want more for ourselves than what we are today. So we need to stop worrying what someone else thinks about us and start believing that we are capable of greatness. 

Your desire for more is not something to be ashamed of. The world needs what you have to offer: your energy, your ideas, your passion, and your courage. So show up for your life and realize your potential. Stop apologizing for being who you are and become who you were meant to be. 

I’m not an expert. I still have many fears, especially the fear of failure. I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon, as long as I keep challenging myself to do new things. I do know how to go from being an insecure young girl, always worried about what others were thinking about me, to becoming a confident and proud woman. All of those areas of growth in my life were once goals I had for myself. 

I didn’t know what I was doing when I first started on this path to overcome my anxiety. I can look back and see the through line between each success and failure that got me from there to here. I can tell you what worked for me, because over the years, I’ve tried a little bit of everything. 

I started by letting go of the excuses that kept me stuck, and then adopting new habits and behaviors that set me up for success. Then I worked at acquiring the skills I needed to get where I wanted to go. But I didn’t have the self-awareness to identify these steps as I was living them. I can look back now and see that these were the main factors that led to every success I’ve had along the way, but only in hindsight. 

It starts by recognizing the things that are limiting you right now, in order to move past them. My bet is that there are so many excuses that stand between where you are, and where you want to be. Your habits matter a great deal. What you do regularly matters more than what you do once in a while, because consistency is key. You can’t just do something one time and expect that it will get you where you want to go. It must become your new normal, which requires reverse engineering. 

So get in the habit of figuring out the finish line and then creating your roadmap backwards from there. It brings to mind the phrase, fake it till you make it. But if you don’t like that one, think of it as acting as if, until you are. Having the confidence to step into the role that you don’t yet have the full training for. It requires putting yourself out there. 

You can’t be afraid to try for fear of failure. You’ll never grow to the next level. I wasn’t really faking it because it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to figure it out as I needed to. I would never have been able to grow my skillset if I hadn’t continuously pushed myself to the very edge of it. So many good things have come from my willingness to act confidently, even when I didn’t feel sure of the outcome. 

Perfectionism and fear of failure can be paralyzing and overwhelming. Perfectionism is a deep-rooted fear of not being good enough, worthy, lovable, or that we’ll be accepted for who we are. It isn’t really about achieving success. The drive is coming from a fear of failure. Fear and procrastination keep you in your own way, from being able to pursue what you want to do.

We’re all a work in progress. We worry far too much about what other people will think of us, if things don’t turn out the way we’d hoped they would. If we lived in a secret world, where no one knew what we tried and what didn’t work, we’d do more stuff and try more things. I know that would have worked for me. But we won’t even try because there’s just fear of what others will think. We care what they will think if we start something and it’s not successful. 

The key is depersonalizing everything that people say to you, because it’s more about them, than it is about you. Maybe it’s that they don’t want to make that change for themselves, so they aren’t actually saying it to you, they’re saying it to themselves. They are just saying it out loud, and you’re the person who is hearing their message. 

But we start to wonder and second guess ourselves, because they’re saying the things that are already in the back of our own minds. They aren’t planting those seeds. They’re just reinforcing what we’re already thinking about ourselves. 

So it’s time to develop trust in yourself, by going into something truly believing that you can do it. You must be assertive. Then your brain will go looking for evidence of behaviors to support that, things that you’ve already done in your life. You’ll start to notice your small wins. 

Sometimes we are unable to see our progress because we’re not paying attention to how far we’ve come. We’re not noticing all the choices we’ve made that are supporting our goals. We make mistakes and we don’t always get it right. So give yourself grace to be human. 

Those early messages we’ve internalized about achievement, success, and failure run deep. It might take a lifetime to fully uncover and overcome childhood messaging. So we need to start rewiring our thinking. 

I remember having success at an early age. I excelled at math. I was proud of my ability. That kind of stuff came easily to me, but I didn’t want to tell my friends. I wanted to keep a low profile. My family responded well to my success, but then they came to expect nothing less than perfect. 

I didn’t have much difficulty with school, but when I did stumble, I would double down and work harder. But I avoided anything that wasn’t a sure thing. And that had a profound impact on my willingness to take risks today.

I’m still afraid of failure. I don’t think we ever outgrow the need for our family’s acknowledgement and approval. In the eyes of my parents, they’ve now told me that I’ve exceeded all of their expectations. My parents were raised in challenging environments, where they didn’t receive a lot of praise themselves, so a lack of praise seemed normal. They demanded academic perfection because they wished their parents had demanded it of them.

Our education system also perpetuates it. We have our knowledge and skills tested and graded daily. We’re recognized for academic excellence. I got used to being seen as the best and the brightest, but then I went to university, where I was just one of many. 

It’s time to swap the old rule book for more reasonable rules and reframe competence in more realistic terms. We can feel more confident and competent without being perfect, because when you expect yourself and your work to always be perfect, it’s not a matter of if you will be disappointed, but rather when. 

I’m still reluctant to jump in and learn as I go. I feel I must know it all before I make a leap. I have a hard time believing that I can do hard things. So I still worry about what other people will think. 

I find it hard to stop researching and acquiring more knowledge, because I have a strong need to know a subject backwards and forwards before I’m comfortable offering an opinion. I feel like I need to know everything there is to know before I’ll consider myself remotely competent when I’m already capable of doing it well. There will always be one more book to read, one more class to take, one more certification to earn, before I will consider myself an expert. 

This is all a function of my insecurity. I don’t want to promise something unless I’m absolutely sure I can deliver. It’s admirable, but I’m just protecting myself. I need to understand that I don’t need to know everything before I start. It’s okay to learn as I go along, because being an expert comes just as much from doing, as it does from credentials.

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide for Determining What’s Next at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode twenty-six.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch. I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked the show, please tell a friend, subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thank you for joining me.