“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”Michael Jordan
This quote captures the essence of something I’m still learning. That to achieve a worthwhile goal, you need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and look at failure as an opportunity to learn from, and not something you run from.
It’s a contradiction to want to achieve ‘success’ but actively seek to avoid failure. Through mental conditioning, it’s easy to play it safe and stay in the comfort zone.
The comfort zone can seem safe, but staying stuck doesn’t help you move forward. Holding onto limiting self beliefs doesn’t positively serve you.
First check your subconscious thoughts are they are showing fear, rejection, worthlessness, stupidity et cetera?
If this is the case even if you consciously want to change for the positive, your subconscious mind has already made the decision for you, and usually wins.
For example you want to do something that stretches you (conscious mind) but you reject it through fear (subconscious mind) before you can act.
There are a number of techniques to counter thus.
– One way to change negative subconscious thoughts, is to firstly be conscious of them. This means being aware of the common themes you tell yourself when your moving out of your comfort zone.
– Then do the opposite of your subconscious thoughts, in a way that is conducive for positive growth.
– Then keep repeating.
– Once an action is repeated for period of time, it becomes a habit in our subconscious.
We are what do, not what we say we do. If you want the action, you need to do the action.
When you want to do something that pushes your comfort zone. Your subconscious will tell you not to do this, and you may think of all the things that will go wrong, but usually our mind creates worse dramas than the actual reality. Only until we see this for ourselves, then we realise that the anticipated fear is much worse than reality…Please note I’m not advocating reckless risks here, if you want to figuratively learn to fly start from the ground first, not from a high level!
Jokes aside. Real or anticipated failure can stop you living… Only if you let it. It can keep you stuck and holding onto your fears, which you believe keep you safe… Only if you let it.
Watch this Ted talk about breaking the fear of failure.
Thanks and regards
Marathon Marcus
Marcus Runs 