Fail Upward

If you followed “having my mad” advice, if nothing else you are tired, but you are probably sad. That’s ok, being sad is part of the formula. We need to look inside, outside and upside down to figure out how to move upward. 

When we are sad, we tend to look inward, at faults and negatives within ourselves. We have a biological setting in us that has a way of amplifing the negative. Celebrate that fact!!! It is what has kept us alive as a species for a long time. Remembering the negative events in great detail, helps us prevent future errors as individuals. Unfortunately, we don’t use this to our advantage as a species as often as we should.

It’s biological to encode negative information in great detail. When early humans remembered the exact color, location and type of berries that made them deathly ill, that information saved them from making the same mistake again. We have a highly sensitive brain for negative information to help us.

Unfortunately, in this day and age of constant negative media, we have become less sensitive because we are in overload all the time. To help with that issue, you need to remove yourself from the negative and your sad, by turning outward to positive sources of information.

The world has a large amount of positive information…..just turn off the news media. A beautiful world is out there, you just have to look outside yourself (turn off the negative voice in your head also). The phrase ” it’s amazing out there” is true. Weather and nature give us some of the most uplifting things to lift our sad. But there are many positive options, funny movies, gardening, religion to name a few that have some positive aspect for many people. You need to find one that works for you!!!

Don’t get stuck in your own head, it can be a very negative and lonely place to be. If you are not ready for other people (I understand that!!!!!) then use the world around you to find inspiration and positive images and events even if you have to work at it. It will lift the sad from your failure and re-energize you for the next steps. Like the rings from a stone thrown into a pond, you need to move outward.

Failure according to Merriam Webster dictionary is the:

omission of occurrence or performance; specifically :  a failing to perform a duty or expected action or

a state of inability to perform a normal function or

lack of sucess or falling short

When any of these events occur there is a great deal of emotion that goes with them. Embarrassment, fear, frustration, sadness and of course anger. Anger is often the combination of all the other feelings. These are not fun or happy or basically generally acceptable in today’s society. So what do we do with these feelings?

Well currently, we cover them up, blame them on other people, places, or circumstances etc. The problem with doing that is these emotions will still come to the surface, usually in my experience, at the worst possible time and very often in the worst possible way. Only making things worse!!!

As a side note, when I was young I had 2 issues, a major temper and as my brothers and sisters would be happy to tell you…..I got into trouble….a lot. Which meant I got used to failing and being angry. I learned that I was burning a lot of energy being angry and failing. Which is how I got interested in failure in the first place….but that’s me.

I learned early that life is not fair and not everyone got a ribbon for showing up. I want to thank the many people who taught me that early as much as it hurt then and ask parents and teachers to stop playing that game…..kids figure it out early in life. You are not helping them. There are better ways to teach self esteem. (P.S. The kids are using it to manipulate you.)

So we have a failure and feelings and we need to do something about it, preferable in a positive way. I coined a phrase that works to let other people I know that I am working through some negative feelings. We call it “Having my mad”, because they are our feelings and taking them out on others is not OK. It also is a great statement for getting some time to yourself. Because at my house, that means we need to give the person space to work things out.

So what can we do? Exercise is great, if you hate exercise, try fluffing some pillows hard….if they break all the better because that will make you laugh until you have to clean up the mess but your still using that negative energy up. It is important to get moving and do something positive and creative.

The most important aspect while “having your mad” is to not hurt anyone including yourself. Remember, energy, even negative energy can accomplish a lot of positive things. I’ve washed and waxed cars by hand, built a workbench, cleaned the house, repainted rooms, raked all the leaves in the neighborhood and well I could go on and on …. ok I already said I had a great deal of anger growing up.

At some point you will get tired and those negative emotions will begin to fade and if you have followed this advice, you have something to show for it. But this is only the beginning of failing upward!!!!! Now the best part begins….moving up!

Failure is not an option for anyone. It is guaranteed to happen. Unfortunately we treat it like so many things, we don’t want to talk about it or how to manage it. In the process we lose so much valuable information. Information we need to move forward. Just like a baby learning to walk, we fall down. It’s what a baby learns from falling that helps them get up and do it again and again. We lose this ability to learn from failure as children. This blog is about dealing with and rising above failure. Using failure to your advantage. To move beyond failure to success. Failure will happen……over and over throughout life and knowing what to do about it and how to use it to your advantage is what makes it such a powerful force. Its time to learn how to fail upward again!!!!

I have been studying failure, experiencing failure and watching failure for many years. In that time, I have watched the concept of failure become as taboo as discussing sex or money. It’s time we started talking about failure and how to use it to our advantage. To help us fail upward.