Hey, it's Iris helping you to find your passion
and make it your work.
In today's video
I want us to have a real and honest one-to-one chat,
just you and me, about what to do
when you're feeling like a failure.
Because believe it or not, I am very
very familiar with this feeling.
I think it's fair to say that
feeling like a failure is kind
of like my not-so-welcome company in life, honestly.
But fortunately I have learnt a ton of it
and I am learning how to deal with this.
So my hope is that this video
will not only make you feel less alone,
but also that it will arm you with some tools
to help you overcome that feeling.
But before I go there, as always, if you like this video,
please hit that thumbs up button.
And if you like my videos, you can subscribe to my channel
by hitting that subscribe button.
All right, let's get to it, shall we?
So first things first.
Feeling like a failure
is essentially self-criticism in disguise.
And it often happens when
you are scrolling through social media,
you see other people landing a new job,
achieving their goals, travelling to far away places,
or simply just doing really cool, fun, interesting
and impressive things,
and realising that you haven't done
or achieved nearly as much.
It can also happen when you put yourself out there.
When you try something new, when you take a risk,
when you challenge yourself,
and things didn't go as planned.
Now here's your reality check,
here's the thing that I want to share with you,
the thing that I tell myself when I feel like a failure,
and is that all that failure is,
is simply that you did not do
something that you were meant to do,
or that you did not achieve
something that you wanted to achieve.
It is not a statement about who you are.
So let me repeat that.
Failure is not a statement about who you are.
Failure is inevitable, an inevitable part of life.
No one is immune from it.
Now, sadly, no one has a final solution
that works for everyone
or stops everyone from feeling like a failure.
But having said that, the following three tips
are my favourite ways to combat that feeling.
Tip number one: focus on effort.
Now this is my personal favourite,
and it really works for myself when I focus much more
on the actions that I'm taking
and the effort that I put into the things I do,
and the seeds I'm planting,
because ultimately I know,
that if I plant enough seeds and I tend to them,
that the fruit of all that hard work,
the fruit of that labour will come.
It's just not always clear when that's gonna come
but I know that it will come.
So it tremendously helps to focus much more
on planting those seeds and the effort that I'm putting in.
And let me give you a little bit of a story,
on how I apply this in real life.
I'm gonna use my son Blake for that.
So when he was 12 months old
and he started to learn how to walk,
I would praise him for all the effort that he put into it.
So if he really tried to take that next step,
but he fell back on his bum, would I then be disappointed?
No, obviously not.
I would praise him for trying
and falling and then getting up again.
I would praise him for that.
And I think this is a really healthy approach
to take with ourselves as well,
to focus much more on the input.
As I said the effort that we're putting in,
the seeds that we're planting.
And to not so much focus on the outcome
what we're getting when we're getting it,
if it's all lining up to how we'd expected things to happen,
none of that
So that's tip number one.
My second tip is to let it out.
Because here's the thing.
When you are feeling like a failure,
and you crop it all up inside you,
those feelings don't only linger
but they start to grow inside you,
they start to take a life of itself
and you start believing it more and more.
So you might start collecting or searching
for evidence to prove that you are indeed a failure.
So next time when you are feeling like that failure,
release it, let it out.
There are so many different ways you can do that.
A really good way is to chat with someone
that could be a friend, someone that you really trust,
could be a coach, could be a therapist,
or another way to do it would be to go boxing
that really helps for me.
Hitting a heavy bag I tell you,
that is massively helpful
when I'm feeling frustrated and inadequate.
Or you could try EFT, which is emotional freedom technique.
If you don't know what EFT is
Google EFT, and you can learn anything and everything
that you need to know about it, it's helped me massively.
And obviously these are just three ways
to release it, to let it out.
There are tons of other ways
but it's important to find something,
that helps you to release those thoughts and emotions.
All right, moving on to my final tip, tip number three,
and that is to break the cycle of negative self-talk.
Make it a habit to talk more positively about yourself.
So take a second to answer the following question.
What are traits that you value within yourself?
What are traits that you perhaps might even
praise yourself for
or might even be a little bit proud of?
Now I want you to start doing this during non-crisis times.
What I mean with that,
this is a time when you're feeling good about yourself.
When you're not full of self-doubts,
when you're not feeling inadequate
where you're not feeling like a failure.
Because it will be much easier
when you start that positive self-talk,
when you're feeling good about yourself,
to then apply it when you're feeling full of doubt,
when you're feeling inadequate,
when you're feeling like a failure.
Now remember, feeling like a failure
is nothing but self-criticism in disguise.
And one of the best ways I think
to break this is to start to change that narrative
that you tell yourself in your head
and to start focusing more
on the things that you value within yourself,
than the things that you don't value within yourself,
the things that you feel like you're doing wrong,
or the things that you're lacking.
So let me give you an example here.
In the first few years after I left my corporate job,
I felt like a huge huge, huge, huge, huge failure.
But there were a couple of things
that I valued within myself.
And one of those things was the courage,
the courage to leave the beaten path,
and wander off into the unknown.
And the second thing was my integrity to follow my heart,
follow my desires, and ambitions.
So I focused much more on that
and started that narrative,
or changed that narrative in my head,
where I focus on that more than all the things
I believed I was lacking.
All right, there you have it,
my three ways to help you stop feeling like a failure.
Now, obviously none of these are magic pills,
so take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't.
And remember it takes time and practise
to make these things work.
So let me know in the comments
which one you are going to try.
I'd love to know.
And thank you so much for watching.
If you've watched it up until here,
then please leave a like,
it would mean the world to me.
And if you like my channel,
you know what to do: hit that subscribe button.
All right,
thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you again next week.
Bye.