Failure and Rejection: Navigating Challenges with a Resilient Mindset

#279 - Can failure be the key to success? Discover how rethinking setbacks can transform your life and business in this empowering episode of Organized Chaos. Join me as we explore how shifting your perspective on failure and rejection can unlock new avenues for growth. Inspired by Thomas Edison's legendary quote, "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work," we'll dive into practical strategies for turning obstacles into opportunities.

Together, we'll unpack how viewing life as a science experiment can help you tackle your goals with resilience and a positive mindset. Learn how to dodge self-sabotage, maintain momentum, and turn every stumble into a stepping stone. This episode promises actionable advice and insights to help you detach emotionally from setbacks, analyze them objectively, and refine your strategies for future success. Don't miss this chance to redefine your relationship with failure and start thriving with intention!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. Hey friends, welcome to another episode of Organized Chaos. I am so glad you're here with me.

Speaker 1 0:45

Today. We're going to be talking about failure and rejection. I wanted to talk about this topic because it's really important to understand what this does to us in our potential growth, and you can apply this. Of course, a lot of the things that I talk about, you can apply this to any area of your life, but I want to really hone in on, kind of like, the business aspect of things. So, like I said, we're going to be talking about failure and rejection and really learning how to turn setbacks into opportunities for growth. So why am I talking about this? Well, because it's inevitable. No one wants to fail, but it's just a part of life. If you know how to use it to your advantage, then that's when things start to get really exciting. So let me just discuss kind of how I see failure and rejection and how it's important to talk about it, because it really sets us up for expectations, right, when we think about failure and let's say, we think about there's a particular goal we want to achieve and we have a set of expectations that we're actually going to achieve that, and if we don't, if we fall short, then we've failed. So I think that, yes, it is a part of life, but we also do want to succeed. We also want to hit our goals. So I really kind of think of this in many different ways and I want to share a quote by Thomas Edison. It's a famous quote. He says I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. So of course he's talking about, I think, the light bulb. And the way that I see it now is that the things that we do are just one giant science experiment, just like Thomas Edison, right.

Speaker 1 2:40

So when we think about failure, it's really about our interpretation of what we think failure is, and I mean this is the whole point of this episode is really kind of to change your perspective on what failure and rejection are and how you can actually use it to your advantage. So what is failure? As a definition? It's the inability to meet expectations or the lack of success. So, of course, failure is not something right and we take it really personal because we feel like we're the failure and we failed, rather than that didn't work.

Speaker 1 3:40

Let me try something new. You see how that different shift in perspective really changes things. It really changes your energy. So, of course, like naturally, we're going to feel like I'm a failure and I failed, and you know, we can have our pity party or whatever. However, it's not going to get you to keep moving forward. It's actually going to keep you stuck.

Speaker 1 4:04

Now, the thing is that what I want you all to understand because this has really helped me in really moving forward and not getting into a cycle or into a thought pattern of self-sabotage is that I'm not a failure, because that's a story and I have not failed. I just tried something and it didn't work. So, like I said, it's this giant science experiment. Life is a science experiment. It's like we have to go through things in order to figure out what works and what doesn't, so that our next try we can do a little bit better. And if that doesn't work, our next try we can do a little bit better, and if that doesn't work, our next try we can try and do it better. So really the lesson here is that we just have to take the lessons from our failures. We have to see what it is and be objective in that and not get so caught up in the actual emotions. And, like I said before, like this is really something that's inevitable, like it's the universal nature of failure. Everyone experiences it, right. So we just have to learn how to handle it and how to deal with it, because if we don't handle it, then it really affects us mentally, it starts to really affect our self-esteem and our self-worth. So when you stick with the story of I failed or I'm a failure, what you're doing is perpetuating self-doubt and low self-esteem. So I want to share a personal story.

Speaker 1 5:39

So I am not super comfortable about being on camera. In fact, I'm recording this episode. I used to record audio only, but now I have an amazing producer who is actually editing the episodes. But the easiest way to do this is with a program that uses video and audio. So right now I have my laptop covering my screen, but it's okay because it's still recording my video and my audio. So being on camera is not the most comfortable for me, and doing workshops and webinars is also not comfortable for me.

Speaker 1 6:23

However, there was an opportunity for me to do a workshop in a community and I really hesitated to put my name in to do that workshop. However, I pushed myself to do it because I had to remind myself that if I don't step outside of my comfort zone, I'm not going to learn how to get better. So this is the idea of doing things even though you're scared, because you're going to learn a lesson from it. So of course, I wanted to do an amazing job on the workshop. Right, we all want to succeed.

Speaker 1 6:57

However, I really had to set the expectations of if this doesn't go exactly the way I planned. That's okay, because I'm going to get so much knowledge from it. So I kind of give myself the sense of there's no way I can lose in this. So when I shift my mindset at the beginning of that, so before doing the workshop and everything, and if I start to tell that story to myself, then I can prepare for it to myself, then I can prepare for it. So I have had those experiments in the past, those lessons that I've learned, and I have realized that I will tend to under-prepare if I feel like I'm going to fail at this.

Speaker 1 7:38

So if I was thinking, okay, I'm going to do this workshop but I'm going to mess up and it's just going to be a total failure, then I wouldn't prepare for it, because why put in the energy and effort to something that you already see is going to be a failure? But if I shift my mindset and think you know what, I may make a mistake and that's totally fine, everybody does, I don't know. I've seen so many workshops and so many live videos and everything that people mess up but they just keep going. So I know that the expectations is important. Yeah, I'll probably make a mistake, but it's going to be okay, I'm just going to do my best. Then I will have better energy to actually go into that workshop.

Speaker 1 8:24

And then in the past I know that underpreparing myself has led to more mistakes. So because I want to reduce the amount of mistakes that I make, I'm going to be fully prepared, knowing that I don't know what the outcome is going to be. But being overly prepared won't hurt and I did it and it went just fine. And guess what? I made mistakes and I didn't do certain things that I said I was going to do in the workshop. I left stuff out, but overall I think I did a great job and I also got some feedback. But I'm still going to learn lessons and I always ask for job and I also got some feedback. But I'm still gonna learn lessons and I always ask for feedback and I always do kind of a deep briefing with myself like, okay, what can I learn? Even if it would have gone totally wrong, I would have probably sat with the emotions but then got to learning mode so that I can be better for next time. So what I'm really saying is that we should view failure as feedback and a learning opportunity, because if you do it that way, that's a growth mindset approach to setbacks.

Speaker 1 9:29

So, going into kind of like how we handle these situations and how we handle failure, I want to give you a tip on how to do that A little bit of a strategy that has really helped me. So, first off, acknowledge and accept emotions without judgment, because when we feel like we failed, usually shame is associated with it. So just feel the emotion and it's okay, but don't stay there for too long. Once you get through that, once you get through processing that emotion and sometimes we can't always do that ourselves, like I actually help my clients kind of get through some of these things and it really helps to kind of get that outside perspective but once you actually process that emotion, then you can analyze the situation. So what can I learn from this? What did I see as a factor in this? Like, was I underprepared? Did I not ask questions at the beginning to see what it was that the audience would want to learn? Did I not get a good night's sleep? Were there other situations that were not related to whatever I was doing that affected me? So we can analyze some of those external factors to see what it is that we can do better for next time.

Speaker 1 10:44

And it's not just about focusing on what went wrong so that you can fix it. You also want to see what you did great, because sometimes that'll get clouded when we're thinking too much of what went wrong. So it's really important to actually acknowledge the things that you did right and really build on your strengths. So now let's talk about rejection, because this is a big one. When it comes to businesses, there is not just a fear of failing at what you're doing, but there's also a fear of rejection. You know, putting yourself out there, telling people about your business, telling people how you can help them. There's always that fear of rejection.

Speaker 1 11:24

But the way I've had to learn, and I'm still learning on how to actually reframe this is that rejection is actually redirection. As cheesy as it sounds, I start to see now that wherever I get rejected, it's only because there's a different path that's right for me. So what I like to do to kind of interpret and respond to rejection that really benefits me is just to understand that it's not really about me. So if I present my program, my offer, to someone and they say no, the first thing that I have to do is to tell myself that it's not about me. It's just not the right time for them and who knows, maybe working with that person wasn't going to be the best thing. So that's where that redirect comes in.

Speaker 1 12:15

I'm sure there are a lot of stories out there of you know, when you are about to do something and you really want it and it just doesn't work out for you and you feel rejected. But then you found that there was a whole other opportunity that was so much better. But it's important to understand that it was a redirection and not just a sole rejection of yourself. So one other tip I have is that you really need to have a support system when you start feeling these feelings. So having a group of people that are possibly running a business as well, or even friends and family that are supportive, a mentor that can provide some other perspective and encouragement, that is super important.

Speaker 1 13:02

And sometimes you need a little bit more help, like seeking therapy or maybe even a coach to kind of help you process some of these stories and reframe them so that they can really help you out. So this is a process, and it's not always easy to kind of see failures as opportunities for learning. So it takes time, but it makes such a big difference when you go from feeling like you're failing all the time to actually just being excited about trying things and learning from it and then improving. One of the things that really helps me is to celebrate those small wins, because we tend to focus a lot on the negative, a lot on the things that go wrong for us, so celebrating those small wins is really, really key. All right, I hope that was helpful. That's all I have for you today. Thank you for joining me today and tune in next week for another episode. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and I'll see you next week.