I am reading a book by Gretchen Rubin titled The Happiness Project: or why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right, read Aristotle and generally have more fun. It is a long title but so far it has been an interesting book. One thing that she said has really rung a bell for me. “Enjoy the fun of failure.” Hmmm if you change the way you think about failure and embrace the fun of it you will not be afraid of it anymore.
Fear of failure is a major problem. It strikes everyone at one time or another. My Organizational Behavior and Management book also was discussing this. One of the major leadership qualities is, they embrace failure. Successful leaders are not afraid to step up to the plate and try something. The textbook listed numerous people who are considered great successes, but if you look at their records they fail as often as they succeed. Sometimes even more times than they succeed. But they use that failure as a launching pad for something else. They go back to the drawing board and tweak their designs and try again. How often have you heard “if you aren’t failing you aren’t trying”? Have you ever really thought about that? I know that I didn’t until now.
I am going to post the saying “I enjoy the fun of failure” on my mirror. I am a firm believer in mantras; I try to tell myself everyday that I believe in myself, that I am awesome, that I am a success. Every night as I go to sleep I tell myself, happy happy joy joy! It helps me go to sleep.
Embrace your fears. Let me know how it goes, I will let you know how I am doing.
Happy thoughts for a happy day!
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