FAILURE, YOU’RE EXPOSED…

Prescription:Expose Yourself

Dosage: Readers are required to assess how they handle failure

Failure… can be a scary word, right? I remember my school’s motto was “failure is not an option, success is a choice”. Sounds good, but what happens when you fail? What happens when you follow every rule & still come up short? What happens when you only see failure & never see your successes?

I’m grateful for the positive reinforcements we have today, that embrace failure and see failure as motivation. However, my first experience with failure wasn’t so motivational.

I was exposed to failure in school ( I know, the place that told me not to fail!). Truth is I struggled in certain subjects throughout school & the pressure from my mother who was also a teacher was indescribable! However, my experience with failing in school created an unhealthy relationship with failure.

What is your relationship with failure like?

I’m surrounded by friends and family who have entered this era that’s different from their parents and grandparents, but yet they’re working hard to reach a level of success that appears unreachable all because it’s never been done before. That pressure can feel insurmountable and it allows your mind to divulge in thoughts like, “I’m failing in life”. If I just described you, press the chill button and relax a little OK! You’re not failing in life, in fact you’re in a great place of re-evaluating your relationship with failure.

Although, they’re several positive reinforcements available that redefine failure, I found it difficult to change my definition of failure so quickly. I can like 100+ posts on Instagram/Facebook, but if I’m not applying and believing what I ‘liked’ then I need to go back to the drawing board.

My relationship with failure had affected my belief in myself. And like so many relationships failure and I had created some unhealthy habits and patterns. My lack of belief in myself developed a habit of holding myself back. I was settling for the minimum. In my mind I wouldn’t allow myself to go beyond the limit I placed on myself.

We battle so much in our minds, that’s why God said in Romans 12:2 , “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”.

I was embracing failure for a long time, but rejecting her twin; Success. God doesn’t see us how we see us, in His eyes we already won.

When you renew your mind & start to see failure and success as one, failure doesn’t seem so scary anymore and success doesn’t seem so unachievable.

I had to realize the failure had to happen. You know why? Failure exposed me to me.

Failure exposed my unhealthy perspective.

Failure exposed my FEAR OF SUCCESS.

I refuse to maintain an unhealthy relationship with failure anymore, God has placed so much in me, I cannot fail, because I already won! That relationship may have failed, but you successfully realized he/she wasn’t the one versus causing yourself unnecessary heartache. That business hasn’t blown up yet, but you successfully started a business. Point is you don’t have to be stuck in your failure. Acknowledge your failure, but also recognize her twin, success is right behind her. Expose the failure to your success.