I hear this fear stopping humans from going after their dreams again and again… and then again.
Here’s the deal though, it’s not really failure that you’re afraid of, it’s what will happen after the failure. Or actually we should say… what COULD happen.
Last week I baked a homemade steak and ale pie and Victoria Sandwich… or Victoria Sponge Cake, unsure if these are the same thing. Someone can confirm in the comments for me 🙃 Either way… it’s the delicious cake from the UK that I fell in love with. Two beautifully delicious pretty plain cakes with creamy buttercream frosting and homemade jam sandwiched in between.That is my official baking description for you. Paul Hollywood would be proud…
He’s from Great British baking show if you’re totally lost here…
Okay, WHAT does this have to do with failure, yes this story had a point… Not just flaunting my baking skills.
Baking a homemade cake and pie were both brand new skills to me. I easily could have said… “Well, what if I totally fail at this?!” Then I’ve wasted a bunch of ingredients… namely a whole bunch of butter, wasted money on new baking equipment, and a boat load of time. I mean homemade baking is no joke. No wonder meals in the UK took so long to come out. Thank you for the love you pour into your recipes.
I could have said all of that and then not started.
I mean… come on?! Where’s the fun in that.
I think the only total failure in cake and pie baking is if your contents bake away to nothing. Because let’s be real, even if you burn it, you can’t help but give something you put so much effort into just a little taste.
But the real failure… would be never beginning.
So how did my baking turn out…
Edible. Very edible.
I would say on the lines of delicious.
EVEN THOUGH…
The cake needed a little more jam, a little slower on the sugar adding into the icing, and the pie did have a bit of a soggy bottom (big no in GBBO).
Thanks to each of those things, I’ve now learned something wildly valuable for the next time I give these bakes a go or any bakes similar. “Failure” is one of your greatest teachers and sometimes a great opener to joy.
Now, maybe you’re thinking… that’s nice Megan, but baking a cake isn’t quite the same as public speaking or sharing my mission online for the world to see.
I say… Depends how much you value cake 😜
I also say… the same principles apply…
1. Failure is a neutral experience
Like I said in the beginning of this post, it’s not actually the failure you’re afraid of. It’s what “bad” might happen after. So you’ve made failure out to be this big scary moment in time.
But really failure is a neutral experience.
You and I could have the exact same experience in the exact same way and one of us makes it horrible, awful, no good and the other one takes lessons from it and sees it as a beautiful moment of their life.
Failure is neutral.
Take off the charge, and begin a path of new beginnings in ease.
2. Find your old coping strategy
This will help you take the charge off and stop charging failure as no good, horrible, awful, very bad.
What did you make failure mean when you were a little kid? Chances are you’re probably still operating from that space.
So what did you do instead of fail?
3. Learn how YOU operate
We are all unique humans and operate differently. Learning the way you best work with what life gives you will serve you in a really BIG way, even in failures.
Not everyone is designed to just go for it!
Not everyone is designed to make comfort zone leaps before they look.
If failure is holding you back, discover how you can move into a new story in a way that works for you.
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