This week I'm talking about the power of failure to help us thrive in new ways.
I've personally seen how my own perceived failures have led to my best successes.
Not always in the way I anticipated or wanted, but it's always worked out in the end.
In this episode, I explore the power of failure and how it can set us on a course for success as we reinvent ourselves.
I also discuss three ways that failure can contribute to our success: by building our persistence muscle, offering lessons we need to learn, and helping us see new possibilities. Join me as I delve into the first of these three points, and stay tuned for upcoming solo episodes where I'll explore the other two.
It's the first of a 3-part series about how powerful failure can be to catapult us forward - even when it doesn't feel good at all. (because honestly, when does failing ever feel good? 😉)
Tune in to hear:
✳️ Three specific ways that failure can contribute to our success
✳️ The power of persistence to turn failures into growth opportunities
✳️ How quitting a corporate job to become a health coach was a failure that lead to my ultimate success
Need some inspiration as you navigate reinvention? It's all about perspective and the willingness to "fail forward".
Pop in your ear buds, relax and let's get inspired to see failures as paving the way to our personal growth.
Mentioned in the episode:
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0:00:01
I can't believe I thought that was a good idea. This is never gonna work out. Why do I feel like I fail more than I succeed? Have you ever thought any of these things to yourself? Or something similar? We are wired toward the negative, and our negative self talk can do a real number on us. But what if our failures and disappointments were little bread crumbs toward our ultimate success? Today on the Reinvention Rebels podcast, we're talking about the power of failure to set us on a course for success as we reinvent ourselves. Are you all in on finding out how you can lean into your failures to propel you forward towards your goals?
0:00:56
Welcome to Reinvention Rebels. Stories of brave and unapologetic women fifty to ninety years young who will boldly reimagined life on their own terms to find new purpose and possibilities. I'm your host, Wendy Battles. Ready for a dose of inspiration? Let's get to it.
0:01:23
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Reinvention Rebels podcast. I am so happy you're here. I'm your host, Wendy. This is the place to come for information and inspiration about what is possible when we decide we're ready for more. We want to reinvent ourselves. We want to see new possibilities. I am joined by amazing women who are reinventing themselves at fifty and beyond.
0:01:52
I share a series of different solo episodes as well to motivate you and inspire you into action. And this season our theme is, do it scared, do it anyway. Because I've got fears, and I'm sure you do too. Sometimes, I can let them hold me back, but when I give myself permission to go for it, there are so many possibilities out there. And I want you to think about the same. How can you take that leap? In a way that works for you, that can open up new possibilities. So we'll be talking about that in our episode today and of course throughout the season. But before we get into today's topic, talking about Failure is the key to success.
0:02:39
I do want to ask you, number one, did you listen to last week's episode with the amazing Dahlia Douglas-Ingram? She is so cool. She is so fierce. She is so authentic. I love her story of how when things weren't great for her in midlife, when she was really struggling with especially perimenopause and her body and her emotions. She took action and she did it scared and she reinvented herself from the inside out, really working on getting healthier and stronger, working on her emotional health. And that has changed everything in her midlife trajectory. It was such a fantastic episode, so many nuggets of wisdom. If you didn't have a chance to listen to it yet, I have linked to it in the show notes. Because you don't wanna miss this episode. She is just really an amazing person with such a great story.
0:03:38
And remember that we can all start with where we are. It doesn't mean we have to go from zero to a hundred. We can go from zero to ten or zero to five and get our groove and grow from there. And it's about taking those incremental steps, which is what she talked a lot about in this idea of navigating midlife reinvention. So please take a listen to that. And if you love it, please comment, leave a review, tell me how awesome you thought that episode was.
0:04:08
The second thing I do wanna tell you is that coming up very soon, May 1-4, I'm very excited to be part of the Goals with Soul Virtual Summit. Details I have put in the show notes. This is a great opportunity to get inspired by amazing women, myself included, who are sharing bits of inspiration, motivation, things to help you move towards your goals in a really fun podcast format. So you really love podcasts because you're listening to reinvention rebels. So imagine being introduced to all kinds of amazing women that could help you grow. It's being hosted by my friend Kate House who has a beautiful podcast called Live By Design. And it's gonna be really fantastic. And it's all free. Free - doesn't cost a thing. So I wanna encourage you to check out the link that's in the show notes, find out more, sign up for this free summit, and then start listening to these mini podcast episodes. They're pretty short. Very impactful. I just recorded mine with Kate a couple days ago and I'm very excited. So I hope you'll check that out.
0:05:34
So let's talk failure? I know. It's not my favorite topic, but I have failed many times before. You've probably heard me talk about some of my failures. If you've been listening for a while and you've heard a lot of my different episodes, it hasn't always been smooth sailing. Like everybody else, I've had my ups and downs. So yes, failure is a part of life. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I can get really stuck on it. I can go over and over the things I did in the past where I failed or I didn't succeed in a way I thought. I'm very guilty of that. But as many times as I've failed, and I'll talk about some of those things over the next three solo episodes.
0:06:18
I'm gonna kinda spread it out and tell you about three different ways that I think failure can help us toward our success. But I have to tell you, I wouldn't be where I am without those failures. They're all part of our journey. And I know that I can get so disappointed sometimes. I can get really down on myself sometimes. I can get so focused on those failures. And I don't have the ability to see that bigger picture.
0:06:43
Today, I want to share three ways that I think failure can help us navigate new possibilities on our path to success. And as we reinvent ourselves. Because sometimes failure is what we need to move forward. Sometimes it circuitous. Sometimes it feels like a major roadblock or obstacle. But I'm trying to get into that mold that instead of feeling bad about my failures, And of course, sometimes we need to lean into them for a while and feel that way. But once I can get over that and then embrace them, and see them as opportunities, there is a whole new world of possibility out there.
0:07:19
For me, there are three ways that failure shows up as a road to success. Number one is that it builds our persistence muscle, our ability to persevere. Number two, it offers lessons that we need to learn. If you ever heard that phrase, sometimes you have to keep learning something till you finally get it. So there's that. And then three, it also helps us see these new possibilities. So three ways that failure can contribute to our success even though we often can't see it. So I wanna delve into the first one in today's episode. I'll cover those next two in upcoming solo episodes. But this idea that we are building our persistence muscle that when we fail, it helps us persevere in the future. And I'm gonna tell you a story about that and what I mean.
0:08:15
Several years ago in my forties, I quit my corporate job to become a health coach. Probably wasn't my best idea, and it wasn't the best why. My why was I really didn't like my corporate job. I felt unhappy. My dad had passed away. I was really searching and this seemed like a good fit for me at the time because of course we all change. So at the time, quit my job. I started this health coaching practice after I'd gone and gotten the certificate in nutrition.
0:08:43
But one, I didn't know anything about running a business. So that was a problem. Kinda figured it out, but I was never good at trying to juggle all the different things, getting clients, marketing, bookkeeping all the things you need to do to run a business. So I often felt overwhelmed by it. I also realized that it was a lot of time spent by myself And, you know, I'd spend time, of course, with my clients, but then I spend a lot of time by myself. And I am a people person. I do my best work when I'm part of a team. So I found it very isolating. The other thing is that I thought that I don't know why I would immediately be successful. Which is of course ridiculous. Anything we do takes time and care and feeding, it takes work, it takes effort, it takes persistence. We have to keep add it. And what I noticed about myself both in this circumstance and in the past is that I can give up kind of easily. Like, if it's not going my way, if it's really really hard, if I'm doing a lot of work and struggling and I'm not getting very far, I sometimes take that as like, well, makeup, I meant to do this.
0:09:49
I did it full time for two years as a health coach. I honestly only ever broke even. I never really made a profit. And then I decided that I was doing all this work. I wasn't really able to help people in the way I wanted to in this much broader way. And I just felt really unhappy. So I decided I was going to get a part time job. So for several years, I did it part time. The house coaching as I had a part time job and that was a much better fit for me, but I started to see this pattern when I was done. First of all, I beat myself up for a long time thinking that I failed. So that part wasn't good. So the psychological part wasn't good failure failure failure and it was hard to see the part that was successful. And then I think I got really caught up in "I just didn't keep going."
0:10:34
So what I have learned about this though? Because we need perspective, we need distance to help us see the lesson in our failures. And in this case, it helped me to build my persistence muscle because ultimately that wasn't what I was meant to do. And that's okay. We try things and sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. But you know what I figured out? That struggle that I went through, that giving up multiple times and other things helped me build my persistence muscle for what I'm doing now. I finally figured out this is what I am meant to do. I'm meant to have this really fabulous podcast and inspire people. Especially women over fifty, but people all all types shape sizes, you name it. Right? That is what I meant to do.
0:11:22
And those what I call failures, those things that didn't work out? They were helping me see that I need to have more persistence. And when you marry something that you love and you find your purpose with persistence, it's so much easier to do it. This is my note to you about seeing how persistence can help us. It helps us grow. It helps us persevere so that when we find that thing that lights us up, we're not willing to give up easily. We're willing to keep going. Those things were a powerful lesson to help me see that I can do this. That I am here for the long haul, that it's something I absolutely adore and I've been able to build that muscle over time. So that is the first of three ways that failure helps us succeed, in this case persistence. Failure helps us build a persistence perseverance muscle to be determined that when we find that right fit, it's so much easier to leave you with that doc.
0:12:26
Remembering that over the next couple solo episodes, we're gonna be talking about failures two and three, and how those are also impactful too. This idea that we fail sometimes because of lessons we need to learn and failure helps us see new possibilities. On that note, I'm so glad you joined me today for this short solo episode beginning to unpack this idea of failure. Is a key to our success. I'd love to know what you think about this - in what way has failure helped you? How has that broadened your thinking? When have you failed? But then be able to persist in a new way or a different way in the future. So noodle on that over the next week. And stay tuned for another fantastic guest episode next week. And remember, keep shining your light, the work needs you, an all that you have to offer.
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