Reframing failures
Sometimes the biggest thing holding us back from moving forward is the past.
That time we couldn’t do something.
That time we did the wrong thing.
The truth is, the past is a pretty poor indicator of how the future will go. But we stay stuck in this narrative that we aren’t capable of doing something because of something that did or didn’t happen before.
When I moved on from doing Ways We Work full-time and started my role at Shopify I was $20k in debt in my mental health was in absolute pieces. For years afterwards I deemed the project a failure. It seemed obvious to me that it was.
I couldn’t make it financially viable, therefore it was a failure, I had failed. But was it a failure?
Okay, financially not a success - that we know.
Was read and loved by thousands of people all over the world - amazing.
Had this 20-something year old girl from Kitchener, Ontario interviewing people at some of the most well known companies in the world - still wild to me.
When it was time to find a job, the network and credibility I had built led to 17 job interviews across a 2-week time span - great.
Years later became a podcast that thousands of people listen to - love that.
Is still an incredible community that I’ve met friends and clients through - huge win.
Not to mention all of the learnings and experience that I personally gained through the experience.
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The reason I’m writing this is that chances are there is a story you’re telling yourself right now about a “failure” in your past. And that story is holding you back from going after something you truly want right now.
So try rewriting the story.
Instead of what didn’t work out - what did? What else is true?
What did you learn? What did you gain from that experience?
When I got fired from my job as a front-end developer after three months, I was so embarrassed. But the truth is I absolutely hated sitting and writing code all day with so little interaction with other humans. It wasn’t the job for me, and thank goodness I learned that in 3 months instead of 3 years.
Our brains are incredibly good at protecting us from experiences that scare us or might hurt us. So if your brain believes the last time you: “put yourself out there”, “tried a new thing”, “went for that opportunity” - it was a total flop - of course it’s going to do everything it can to never let you do that again.
So tell it a different story.
Take good care,
Amandah