Embracing rather than dwelling on failure.

elevate

elevate

Fapstronaut
You have to be willing to commit. To go for it 100% even if you look stupid at first.

Failing, mistakes, struggling, frustration, confusion, experimenting, being incompetent, uncertainty, and looking foolish. All this is part of the process of reaching beyond your current place (growth / change). Doing something that might not work. Improving yourself. Stepping out of your comfort zone. Trying to gain competence and confidence in something.

What stops this process is procrastination, perfectionism, fear, and dwelling on your imperfection.

Procrastinating because we want a guaranteed outcome before going for it. Perfectionism and dwelling on necessary failure because we resist reality with our how it's supposed to be ideal fantasy. Fear because we don't want to face the messy, awkward, unideal, imperfect, difficult, and uncertain reality.

So basically we're anticipating the failure coming from a place of fear, then it happens because we're not yet competent at it yet, then we dwell on it, and add more fear / procrastination / perfectionism / dwelling / stopping the flow of the process.

Failure / rejection and all the other negative, painful, and problematic things are supposed to happen, but the perfectionist in us wants everything to be easy, instantly gratifying, painless. and certain. That's why we escape to things like PMO.

When we escape from the pain, problems, and negative experiences that are necessary to develop our reality, we also limit the quality of our pleasure, solutions, and positive experiences.

This is why it takes repeated courage to build competence and repeated competence to build confidence.

The outcome might be uncertain and we might not have confidence, but we can have certainty with the process. Rather than starting then stopping every time reality doesn't match our fantasy of being perfect.

Place your self worth on your ability to act on this process rather than outcomes. Can't control the outcomes, but we can focus on having the courage to grow. That's how you self validate and be action aroused rather than depending on outcomes and other people to decide your worth for you.

Failure is supposed to happen to get competent and confident at something.

Our aim shouldn't be to limit failure or to be perfect. It should be to have the desire to fail as a big and as fast as possible in order to reach competence and confidence as soon as possible.

It's not easy to mess up and look foolish, but it's exactly what you need to get to where you want to go. You have to be willing to go for it 100%. Like a baby learning how to walk. The baby doesn't just stop trying because it thinks it should be able to walk perfectly right away. The baby keeps failing until it can walk.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill
 
Thanks for the post @elevate. I appreciate the understanding in your posts and so I'm going to challenge you.

I'm finding myself more and more turned off by what you write, and I'll tell you why. I notice that you like to use the word 'you' a lot. As I read your post I keep imagining a teacher or a parent wagging a finger at me. And if it's not 'you', it's the royal 'we'. Where are YOU in all this @elevate? Where is your 'I'? Is your wisdom tried and tested? I'd like to know what's YOUR experience? Where is your knowledge coming from? You clearly have a strong message to convey, but in the end why should we trust you?

I have a suspicion that the real you is hiding behind your well-crafted words. I wish you'd let him come out and tell us more about your own personal experience.

I'm not judging, I'm as guilty of this as anyone. But I'm trying to change by showing the real me to the world. And that means telling you exactly what I think.
 
I'm not much of a writer. So don't pay too much attention to me using certain words like you / me. I use them interchangeably without much thought.

Usually when I give advice or post about something, it's something that I like to remind myself of. Something that I had to learn for my own problems.

You don't have to trust me or believe me. If you resonate with what I share, then use it. If not, then find something that better suits you.

I don't really see the point in sharing personal experience unless I want specific help on something I'm dealing with.

I don't have an avatar picture for the same reason. It doesn't matter. I come here to share ideas. Not to share sob stories to garner trust or belief in what I have to say. If I wanted that, I would start a journal.
 
elevate said:
I don't really see the point in sharing personal experience unless I want specific help on something I'm dealing with.

I don't have an avatar picture for the same reason. It doesn't matter. I come here to share ideas. Not to share sob stories to garner trust or belief in what I have to say. If I wanted that, I would start a journal.
Click to expand...

The journal is a healing tool, bro. Self-pity is a valid emotion that is asking to be worked through. When you do your quality of life improves.

Everything matters.
 
Have you thought of using one of those old-school lifts as your avatar? That would be kinda cool... or a hang glider up against an open sky. Just thinking out loud...
 
I'll find an avatar picture just for you.

And as for personal experience with this thread topic... I started competitive ballroom dancing about 5 months ago. Every practice / lesson at the studio is a frustrating, confusing, difficult, embarrassing, struggle that takes courage while I slowly gain competence and confidence.
 
Aww, that's the sweetest thing anyone on NoFap has ever done for me :p Seriously, that's a damn cute avatar.

Sounds like a great learning experience. Dancing really has a way of forcing you to drop your ego and let go. Not to mention the m-to-f ratio. Did you have a thing for dancing from before or just decided out of the blue?

My sister's ex used to be a typical 'nice guy' (kinda like me at the time). He's very creative but used to be a bit of a pushover. After they broke up he got into tango dancing. Last I heard he really took hold of his life, moved cities, stepped up his career. I wouldn't be surprised if he got into red pill content too as part of his transformation. That's the power of dancing I guess...
 
I wanted to try something new and I ended up loving it. I meet a lot of great people at the studio and in the community. The shared struggles and victories are very bonding.

Good for your sister's ex. Tango is a powerful type of dance. So I guess expressing himself through that has allowed him to become a better person.

I'll eventually be learning 10 different styles there. Waltz, viennese waltz, tango, quickstep, foxtrot, rumba, chacha, jive, paso doble, and samba. So there's plenty of failure and looking silly in my future.

You're right about it forcing you to drop your ego. At the beginning I was being a stubborn perfectionist. Being very serious and beating myself up for not getting things right. Basically resisting the process that needed to happen. I learned a lot about being more fun and carefree while still giving it my all. There's no point in attaining medals and trophies if I can't enjoy the process with the people around me.
 
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