failure – in thriver words

Failing Up

Failing up is sometimes viewed as bad. We think of a coworker who gets a job they’re not ready for or an actor getting parts they don’t deserve. But sometimes, an author gets a book published because a manuscript is rejected so many times they’re motivated to revise, revise, and revise until it’s not.

Young Asian man sitting at desk in front of window with left hand on his forehead looking at phone in his right hand. He looks frustrated.

We all fail. Athletes know it. Teachers know it. Parents know it. Chefs know it. Failure is not a failure. It is part of every success. We can let it be a stumbling block or one of the most useful tools we have.

In other words, failing isn’t a choice. We will sometimes make the best choice we know how and still fail. When we do, it’s the next choice that matters.

If it were easy to make the best choice after every failure, there’d be no need for this post. It isn’t always easy. It can be especially difficult if you’re a perfectionist, the situation causes you embarrassment, or you feel you’ve let someone down.

To use failing up as a constructive tool requires getting past your emotional response. This is where many of us get stuck. And not just stuck for a minute. Sometimes growth may be interrupted for years.

I have a friend who repeats a pattern that goes something like this: A friend or colleague does something he views as wrong. He tells them in some manner – sometimes directly, sometimes through condescension he doesn’t know he’s exhibiting, sometimes through an unspoken expectation that the perceived perpetrator will admit they’re wrong. He doesn’t get the response or result he wants. He responds to this by using a ton of time and energy puzzling over what HE did wrong. Somehow, he turns things around to himself.

The interesting thing is, he still feels the perceived perpetrator is wrong. He’s still angry with them. He still wants them to apologize or admit they’re wrong. It seems that turning the scenario around and around in his head, puzzling, and making himself wrong doesn’t result in insight. It just makes him miserable and keeps him stuck.

It’s not unusual to have patterns of behavior that don’t serve us well. In my experience, there are a couple of things required to get past ruminating without progress. One is to trust your body and practice Somatic Experiencing. Turning your process to observing what’s happening in your body can lead to insight you’d never otherwise gain. This is especially helpful for those who have experienced trauma. https://traumahealing.org/se-101/

The second is to allow yourself to feel whatever emotion sits under anger. Your mind may be spinning in neutral because it’s not ready to believe and accept some reality you feel a need to deny. Or you may subconsciously know you will be releasing a flood of sadness, loss, grief, humiliation, vulnerability, or other emotion you don’t feel equipped to handle.

Instead of ruminating, you can use your time to feel a moment or two of sadness. Sit with it. Move away from it as needed. Come back and sit with it again. As you build tolerance, you diminish the fear that keeps you stuck. Think of it as desensitization or exposure therapy.

Talk therapy may not be the best form of help because the temptation will be to regurgitate the conversation you’re having in your head, but there are therapists who offer tools and approaches to make this process faster and easier. It is okay to ask for help.

Once we aren’t being controlled by our emotional response, or avoidance of it, we can begin to explore the lessons a particular failure is presenting. Ask yourself:

Is there something I did well?
How can I build on that next time?
What did I learn about myself?
Is this something I can accept?
Is there something about myself I hope to improve?
How would I improve it?
How would improving it help in a similar situation?
How did I feel during the process?
How do I want to feel when I encounter a similar situation?
Did I respond within my values?
Can I solve a problem I failed to solve this time?
If it is not solvable, what’s the best way to deal with it?
Was I missing information?
Where and how can I fill in my knowledge gap?
What is the takeaway and what can I do better next time?

Think of it like your golf game. Exploring these questions will give you a sense of control and mastery that you would not gain from only hitting at the driving range. You need the terrain of the golf course, the variations in grass, the sand traps, the water hazards, and the long putts to improve your overall game. Every bad putt teaches you how to putt better next time.

Since we all fail, it’s critical to view failure as an opportunity to grow rather than as a stumbling block. Learning from failure is what allows us to fail up.

Is Bigger Always Better or Should I Channel My Inner Goldilocks?

Here’s what I’ve been pondering: Is bigger always better or should I channel my inner Goldilocks and learn to be satisfied with just right. I know, it seems obvious that just right is just right and therefore the obvious choice, but I’m surrounded by images, ads, attitudes, messages, and the occasional TEDx talk that imply, or outright state, that just right is somehow failure; that if I do not reach the absolute pinnacle of wealth, status, expertise, or achievement in my field, I will have failed to have a great career or a great life.
Versailles USA
And it seems to be no secret that I’m supposed to feel happiest when I buy a bigger house, fancier car, more expensive TV, computer, phone, coffee maker, iron, and larger lips, boobs, and these days, perhaps even booty. But I know plenty of people who have bought a bigger house or a high end car and now talk as if they’re more stressed than they were before. I have numerous friends who own the latest and greatest everything, look fabulous, and feel anxious, so anxious in fact, that they use daily medication or alcohol to take the edge off. Working in a service business for 25 years, I am also no stranger to the conversation that includes an expression of dissatisfaction with a job or spouse.

But something feels wrong to me. I understand that most of us are our own greatest limiters, so trying to inspire us to be more isn’t a bad thing on it’s own. The hard thing with all the messages encouraging excess is to determine when more becomes too much. Without tools for discernment or a different measure of enough, it’s easy to fall prey to the lure of too much and too many. Once we get on that roller coaster, nothing is enough and we certainly can’t be enough or produce enough or ever live up to our expectations. How can our spouse, our kids, our boss, or anyone, ever measure up? In this environment, how can we help but feel anxious and fearful?
Rev Run
Last fall I went to see Joseph Simmons (Rev Run) speak at a college nearby. He described a scene early in his career when he was experiencing the kind of success we’re told to strive for. Run DMC’s albums had just gone gold, platinum and then double platinum. At that point, Run’s goal became to top LL Cool J, so, his plan was to go to LA, get a presidential suite with a huge Jacuzzi tub, order French toast and smoke some weed. Then one day, he’s in LA in a presidential suite, in the Jacuzzi eating French toast and smoking weed just like he planned. As he described it, syrup was falling in the tub and ashes were falling in the tub. A guy that ordered him a Rolls Royce to rent was at the door. “Rolling Stone” magazine was at the door with a girl for him, and the hair cut guy was on the way. He had everything he had imagined as “winning”.

Then, Rev said, he had a moment of clarity. He realized that he was trying to have everything at once. He was trying to win like we’re told to win and it did not come with the good feeling he expected. That point was the beginning of his bottom, or as he said it when I saw him, his top was his bottom. To quote the way he said it on another occasion to CNN, “At that moment I took a deep breath and realized that there`s more to life than just being No. 1, pushing the other rappers down.” It was the beginning of a journey that led Rev Run to become a real reverend with a real ministry.

When I was reading “Fearless Living” by Rhonda Britten, the book instructed me to choose a list of heroes. In various versions of this list, I chose Burt Rutan, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Ben Vereen, Theodor Seuss Geisel, and Ron Clark. In the beginning, I noticed that most of my lists were full of men and none included anyone I actually knew. Was it possible that the idea of bigger is better had caused me to believe that no everyday person could possibly qualify as a hero? Even more frightening, did I believe that only men could achieve the level of hero?

By the time I’m consciously asking a question, I know I’ve already shifted my subconscious beliefs enough that I can entertain a new point of view. Today my hero list includes Michelle Knight, Elizabeth Smart, and Michelle Wilkins – all women who endured the unspeakable and emerged with a bright, sweet spirit intact. It’s that spirit that inspires me. You can’t buy it. You can’t get a degree in it. You can have it no matter what you look like. It’s available within each of us and it can be cultivated, nourished, and shared. It is a piece of wholeness.

We all have different paths to healing and wholeness. Along the way, some of us will enjoy accolades, win prizes and garner fame as the foremost achievers in our field. Some of us will receive recognition for our contributions as parents or patrons of the arts. For some of us, there will be no overt recognition. We will only know we are having a positive effect during brief moments when we feel it in another’s response to us.

No matter what my job, my social status, or my financial situation, the more whole I am, the more contentment, satisfaction, beauty, and joy I’ll be poised to experience. That sounds to me like the underpinning of a great career and a great life!
coweta
Wholeness does not require wealth, a bigger house, a high end car, a Nobel prize, a larger TV, plastic surgery, a ticket to the Super Bowl, or French toast in a presidential suite. If I am whole, I can be a hero in my life. It seems quite simple, perhaps obvious, that bigger is only bigger and better is only better when it’s just right. Now that we cleared that up, I’ll just sign off – as Goldilocks, of course!

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career?language=en

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0810/10/gb.01.html

Measures of Success

This week I’ve been pondering measures of success. Why? I have a friend who is struggling. He seems paralyzed to make a change because he believes he recently failed, as he would characterize it, for the first time.

Prior to this “failure”, he had already accomplished great things. He earned a college scholarship, received a Masters Degree, made 6 figures, had a 15-year marriage, traveled extensively, won gold medals, and mentored numerous young men. He still works hard, is an excellent salesman, blogs regularly, writes poetry, loves his children, can do numbers in his head, and behaves ethically in a cutthroat business. I simply cannot see him as a failure. He’s not.

A few years ago, he tried a business venture that didn’t work out and cost him a lot of money. Around the same time, his family situation changed; his work situation became impossible because he refused to lie about his boss. Since that time, his financial situation has deteriorated leaving him feeling powerless to do anything but scramble to try to make the next payment – rent, car, cable bill, electric bill…. He does this by working at a job that he hates in an environment that is toxic. His successes are not celebrated by his boss or coworkers.

From my point of view, he is caught in a loop that goes something like this: I feel like a failure…I could file bankruptcy and be in a better position to make a change…Everyone would see I’m a failure….I feel like a failure…I could get a new job, but it has to pay enough to get me out of my financial hole…I am not qualified for the jobs I see that pay that much so I must depend on someone to give me a break…no one has given me a break…I feel like a failure…I am not a failure…if my ex-wife were more reasonable, my financial situation would be better…she’ll never change and I have no money to legally fight her…I feel like a failure…if I had been willing to lie about my former boss, I’d still have plenty of money…I wouldn’t respect myself, but no one else would see me as a failure…it’s their fault I feel this way…it’s their fault I no longer have that job…it’s their fault I feel like a failure…as long as I stay at a point where I am struggling, I can blame them for my bum deal…I’m not a failure, I was mistreated…I am miserable, but that is better than me being a failure…I will stay miserable…it is not my fault…I am mistreated…but I feel like a failure…I could take the initiative to change my situation, but then any possible failure would fall directly on me and I simply feel too terrified to fail again…I am a failure.

The seductive part of this loop is that there is some truth in there. He was mistreated, horribly. No one was held accountable for the maltreatment. The internet legacy of uninformed gossip that resulted still haunts him. Why does that result in him feeling like a failure and paralyzed for fear he will fail again?

Some of the blame falls on all of us and how we have come to measure success. The reason that this important is that most of us – me, you, your husband, your wife, your daughter, niece, son, cousin, best friend – run the risk of getting caught in a similar loop. The specifics will be different, but the result is the same. We sacrifice our potential best, healthiest, happiest, most loving and engaged selves to the fear that we will not measure up. We posture, pretend, acquire the outward trappings we (often correctly) believe others use to measure success and we hang onto to those while feeling miserable.

Some of us will make a valiant start out of the loop and then succumb only to start and succumb again. Some of us will attain the culture’s measure of success in our work lives, but fail in our relationships with spouses or children. Some of us will destroy our mental, physical, or spiritual health attempting to appear successful as husbands, wives, bosses, employees, and parents.

I am a less difficult person at work and with my children than I am with a partner. I know this and even now I catch myself behaving in ways that keep me from contributing to a partnership in the way I intend. Why? I feel scared. When I feel scared, I look for outward measures of what is normal or acceptable. Why? I don’t trust how I feel or am simply so caught in fear that I don’t know how I feel. Why? Because I grew up in an unsafe environment.

What I’ve had to, and continue to, learn, and what I hope for my friend to learn, is to no longer measure success in accumulation of money or possessions, working the hardest, being error free, meeting external expectations, having the right answer, having a perfect house, being the most organized, cooking the perfect dish every time, or even in great leaps forward.

My measures of success are now based on whether I stick with my intentions, give myself a break, have compassion for others, manage to be fully present in the moment, learn something when I feel I have erred, live according to my values, stay in touch with my feelings, allow myself to feel fear, practice healthy habits, tell myself the truth, say no when saying no is in line with my intentions, allow others to shift and change, fulfill my obligations, practice courage, apologize when appropriate, communicate my needs from a place of kindness, feel grateful for the lessons difficulty teaches me, celebrate progress, and make baby steps along the journey.

There are still moments I feel like a failure, but as long as I’ve learned something it is hard to get stuck there.

I’d love to hear how you measure success. Let me know in the comments section below.

The Benefits of Cooking – Part 1: The Food

One of my kids recently asked why we’re called Cooking2Thrive rather than Eating2Thrive? Given how much all of us like to eat, it’s a valid question. Not only that, but say the word cook and lots of folks want to run for the hills ’cause it sounds time consuming and difficult so why would we want that in our name?

Since the question has been posed, I’m going to answer it with a series I’ll call The Benefits of Cooking.

So here goes – The Benefits of Cooking – Part 1

The Food

I like to focus on rewards, and one of the rewards of cooking is having great tasting food to eat. When I say cooking, I am referring to the act of preparing food using basic ingredients like meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, rice, polenta, honey, herbs, spices, milk, cheese, and yogurt. If you grew up eating home-cooked meals, your mouth may start watering just thinking about Sunday dinner. It’s hard to argue that food made from fresh ingredients does not taste better than food that has been processed to stay consistent in appearance through weeks or months of transportation and shelf-life.

I grew up helping my grandmother in the garden. Every time I see a pale, hard, overly trucked tomato in the grocery store, I cringe as my memory plays the contrasting picture of a soft, dark red, full flavored tomato just plucked from the vine. You know, the kind that sends juice running down your chin when you take a bite! It’s the sort of memory that has many of us attempting to grow tomatoes on the porch when we don’t have a yard. I still miss my grandmother’s tomato juice canned in glass and sitting on a shelf in the basement. That tomato juice started with those vine-ripened tomatoes and ended up as a critical ingredient in my grandmother’s chili or sometimes disappeared as I gulped it thick and sweet from a glass when it was chilled.

The juiciness of a strawberry, the brightness of a sugar snap pea, the crispness of a golden delicious apple with tender skin – all are better when ripened before picking and prepared fresh. As a child, some of my favorite dishes were corn-on-the-cob, fried okra, baked sweet potatoes, green rice, and beef & noodles. Oh, and don’t forget the lemon meringue pie. I requested it for every birthday. My sister preferred cherry pie made with bing cherries from a tree in the yard. One year my mother discovered a fresh peach pie recipe. We bought local peaches in season, peeled them, sliced them, and placed them in a sweetened gelatin atop her flaky piecrust. Topped with whipped cream, this cold pie showcased the uncooked peaches perfectly.

These days I’m quite fond of boneless skinless chicken thighs seasoned with jerk spices, seared in coconut oil, and baked in a cast iron skillet with a little chicken broth, curried pork chops and polenta, mashed butternut squash, roasted cauliflower with a hint of crushed red pepper, steamed sugar snap peas, and my own version of my grandmother’s chili. Since cooking is the easiest way to consume my favorites often, I’m happy to spend some time in the kitchen.

Not only does freshly prepared food taste better, it makes it easier to avoid flavor enhancing chemicals, high sodium content, preservatives, and excess sugars. Even if you’re a great label reader, when you purchase processed food products, you may be consuming chemicals that are not required to be listed or specified on the label. Obviously, most of these won’t kill you on the spot or people would be dropping like flies, so there’s no need to be alarmist and say never ever buy prepared convenience foods from the store or eat what a friend is serving at a party, but it is naive to believe that these chemicals do not alter your body chemistry or affect your brain’s response to food.

And it may not take a large amount of an additive to change how you feel. A study cited in the April 2010 “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise” reported that runners who rinsed their mouths with a carbohydrate solution right before and every 15 minutes during an hour-long treadmill session ran faster and further than those who rinsed with a placebo. The brain senses incoming energy “which may lower the perceived effort,” says Ian Rollo, PH.D. one of the study’s authors.1 Since it appears that a little dab will do it, here in a nation with increasing amounts of chronic disease, more studies of the potential negative effects of chemicals in our diet on long-term health are direly needed. In the meantime, it is up to you to decide how much risk you’re willing to take.

Cooking from fresh ingredients is also the easiest way to avoid allergens, gluten, and lactose or limit sodium, sugar, and starchy carbs. Of course, just because you cook the food doesn’t mean these items will magically be absent, but it does mean you have control over what’s included and it can eliminate the effort of reading and rereading labels.

If the word cooking scares you, remember that many fresh ingredients require little or no enhancement. Zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, lettuce, arugula, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, bell peppers, avocados, radishes, and snow peas for instance can be eaten with just a tiny sprinkle of salt or nothing at all. Fruit may only require peeling.

Even if you purchase water-packed tuna or smoked brisket from a BBQ restaurant and only “cook” a salad to go with it, you can add a tremendous amount of fresh flavor and nutrients to your diet. If that leads you to explore new combinations of flavors and preparations, then you’ll have captured the essence of being a cook. A little curiosity, a bit of practice, and a willingness to sometimes throw the whole thing in the trash are where most great cooks start.

And we all have near disasters or major failures along the way. Most of us burn ourselves, catch a dishtowel on fire, cover the floor in flour, burn cookies, leave out the baking powder, or put too much salt in something from time to time. Often it is from those failures that we learn the most.

I’m going to let this conclude Part 1. As you can see, the benefits of cooking include: Great tasting food and easy elimination of chemicals, allergens, inflammatory foods and lots of label reading. But wait, there’s more! Next up: The Benefits of Cooking – Part 2: The Fun. If you think I’ve forgotten about baking, think again. This is a series, remember, we’ll get to that in a bit.

You’ll find the rest of the series right here at Cooking2Thrive. Look forward to having you back!

Sincerely,
Cheri

1 Rollo, Ian, Matthew Cole, Richard Miller, and Clyde Williams. “Influence of Mouth Rinsing a Carbohydrate Solution on 1-h Running Performance.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: April 2010 – Volume 42 – Issue 4 – Pp 798-804. American College of Sports Medicine, Apr. 2010. Web. 26 Apr. 2012..