7 times down, 8 times up
Let’s talk about rejection and failure.
As a life coach and all around positive person, you may think that these are things I avoid, don’t experience or should not want to think about but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Rejection and failure are part of our everyday lives and something we should not shy away from, not speak about or try to pretend don’t exist.
As my girl Hermione Granger said “fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself”. Rejection and failure are not bad. They are a starting point for something better. I know how that sounds, but as someone who has faced plenty of both, I really do believe that, even when the hurt of experiencing them is fresh.
Let’s look at “failure”
Failure, to me, means something that doesn’t work out the way I had hoped or wanted or tried to achieve. This can be hard to face up to and we can mistakenly think that failing is bad. Indeed, we are conditioned this way from a young age. But to me, failing is learning. Even from the jaws of despair we snatch hope, learning and evolve. What went well? What didn’t work? Fail again, fail better, keep going, be happier.
Another definition of failure, is the lack of success. That word: success. What is it? What is it to you? How does that differ from what it means to your friends, family, colleagues?
Success, and indeed failure, are subjective not objective, at least when it comes to our own lives and goals. We need to first establish to ourselves what our success actually means. What are our measures for this and how will we know when we are successful? Then when we seemingly fail at achieving this we can fully assess another way of approaching our success.
What path is now ahead of us that we may not have seen before and what we have learnt to overcome obstacles in our way.
So what about rejection?
Rejection, the feel of being inadequate. This is something that can cause deep emotional cuts to us, especially in a personal setting as well as professional.
Those doubts and negative thoughts start to creep in: “I am not good enough”, “I am not worth it”, “I am not valued”.
Stop right there.
You are good enough. You are worth it and you are valued. Fact.
There is something that can crush rejection itself and that is resilience. I love the resilience behind the phrase “7 times down, 8 times up”. We can get caught in our downward spirals and it can become very hard to break this cycle and stand back up. But that is what you will do. The only person that gets hurt when you start to spiral, is yourself.
You are worth more.
You are worth being kind to yourself.
In practise, this is difficult. I know that, I understand that. But that is why we build our resilience up, it is not an overnight thing and it is also OK that you will not feel OK, good or great all the time. Be kind to yourself. Start practising on a small scale.
Let’s do a little exercise:
Think about what makes you feel good about yourself: a song, a piece of clothing, red lipstick?
Whatever it is, channel it.
Close your eyes, think about how you feel when you are feeling peak you, when you know how amazing you are and that you are worth it.
Where does that feeling start? What does it look like? What does it feel like?
Imagine you can see that feeling, let it spread across your whole body. Harness that feeling.
It’s that inside feeling of “I got this”, “I am content with myself”.
Now myself is not for everyone and you know what, that is ok with me. Rejection will happen, personally and professional. But that’s ok, it makes us stronger. It takes a lot of work and time but it’s worth it. You are worth it. Remember that exercise above and keep practising it so that at a time you really need to feel at your best, you will find it easier to recall the feeling of confidence and contentment.
Be kind to yourself.
I will never stop being someone that jumps in with both feet. We get bumps and scrapes on the way but we harness these so called failures and rejections and use them to build our resilience and get somewhere great. You got this.