Success made easy

"Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan."
Author unknown

I hosted a workshop last week and the topic of courage and the fear of failure came up. A heated discussion ensued and once more I was astonished how deep the fear of failure is anchored in us.

Where does this fear come from?

During times when our ancestors were still living in caves, a hungry sabre-toothed tiger, rampaging mammoth or other hostile tribes were real life threats to them; their lives were dependent on being a member of a tribe. The more successful a member of the tribe was in hunting animals and bringing fresh meat "home", picking the fattest and sweetest berries, collecting fire wood or defending the cave, holding the tribe together, etc., the more important they were for the tribe, and the higher their position would become. On the contrary, if they failed in their assigned chores, then they would slip down a notch every time they did so. Finally, the tribe would banish them and they were left alone to all the dangers and threats outside the safety of the tribe - which would sooner or later (mostly sooner) end fatally.

Over thousands of years this fear has been very present in us and it still continues to be.

How can we outgrow this fear?

Very often changing our focus is already enough.

When we try to see everything we do as an experiment, there will be only results and feedback, no failure. We then can take the result and the feedback; improve the outcome of our experiment and continue experimenting, again taking the outcome and developing it further and ... well, I guess you get the idea. By doing so, we create a platform of creativity, productivity and continuous growth - and finally we will succeed. We can let go of our fear and relax. This again will give us more clarity and the possibility of coming up with helpful and new insights. We allow ourselves to improve permanently. Our lives will become easier and naturally more "successful" without us trying too hard 24/7.

Exercise:
Make a list of each and every "success" - positive outcome - you can call your own in your life so far, e.g. learning to walk as a child (yes, what a great success - and you did not give up or saw it as failure to fall down the hundredth time), finishing school, learning a profession, surviving how many years already (??), baking great chocolate cakes, repairing something in the house; comforting a sad, angry, fearful family member, friend, colleague; hosting a party for friends, etc. Write everything down that comes into your mind without judging it as silly, too easy or whatever comes into your mind. Just write it down, NOW ;-)

When you have finished, read your list every day and add new topics coming to your mind.

Next, only for one day, see everything you do as an experiment. You can start doing this at a weekend if it is easier for you. Allow yourself to play around and have fun while going along with whatever it is you are doing. Keep an open mind and whatever happens as a result, take it as it is, examine it carefully with the curiosity of a child, improve it further and keep working with it.

After that, make it one day a week, then two days a week, every other day and daily; until this concept is part of your personality.

Don't forget to amend your "positive outcome list" at least once a week; and read it all over again.

Have fun and enjoy your many positive outcomes.

Check out the quotation for July and the short excursion to it on my website.

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Until next month I wish you well,

Sibylle

sibylle chaudhuri
coaching & training

Systemic and NLP Coach

info@sibylle-chaudhuri.co.uk

www.sibylle-chaudhuri.co.uk

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