This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT foundational Guidelines of Heartwork Journaling.

As a coach – and as a human being living now – fear of failure is one of the biggest obstacles that stops you from creating what you REALLY want in your life (or business).

It’s paralyzing.

The crazy thing is that it’s ONLY in the failing and getting up and trying again that TRUE growth and evolution will happen.

You don’t grow and evolve from being successful at everything.

Growth happens through failure.

You grow and evolve from getting over the mental, emotional and action-taking hurdles required to stretch you to become that new, better, stronger, more courageous version of you.

When things come easy, you don’t have to stretch, you don’t have to challenge your old beliefs, thoughts and ways of reacting / being.

I LOVE words.

Words matter.

So let’s look at the definition of FAILURE.

Failure:

1. lack of success

2. the omission of expected or required action

Did your head “explode” like mine did with definition #2 above?

It’s in the failing that the expected action is fully understood.

It’s in the failing that the required action becomes visible.

Fail. Fail Often.

My challenge to you is to fail more often.

Will it be uncomfortable?

Yes.

Will it be embarrassing?

Possibly.

But not really.

Stay with me here.

It’s not shameful, embarrassing or humiliating to fail when you are consciously trying to do hard, stressful and / or uncomfortable things in order to GROW.

That is the epitome of COURAGE.

That is what the VAST majority of people are unwilling to do.

The majority of people want to stay safe.

Stay comfortable.

Stay small.

Stay the same.

But that’s not you, is it?

What are you really here for?

If you’re anything like me, you’re here – on this human journey – for the growth.

For the expansion.

For the contribution you make as you grow and expand.

The world NEEDS more people growing, expanding and yup… trying and failing more often.

The world needs you to FAIL.

I’m more committed than ever to growing, expanding, getting uncomfortable, doing things I’m not 100% prepared to do.

This requires me to fail more often.

To that end, I created a super fun (and helpful) Heartwork Journaling lesson that will help.

Heartwork Journaling Lesson

For the exact supplies I use for my Heartwork Journaling practice, go here.

You can also do this with a pen and a piece of paper or post-it note, but adding color is so much more fun and soothing!

 

The purpose of this lesson is to help you make every failure a growth and learning opportunity in order to be more courageous (and willing to fail).

Inspiration for Failure is Fertilizer

This lesson was inspired by my former horse breeding business, I had over 50 horses.

Horses generate a lot of fertilizer, in the form of poop! The horse stalls were cleaned every morning and big piles of poop would be carted out of the stables daily.

It would be piled up in the furthest corner of the farm.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of poop.

Each Spring, the most beautiful thing happened. Some gorgeous plants would appear in the middle of the mountain of horse poop.

The first year, I asked who had planted them.

According to my farmhands, nobody planted them.

They simply appeared out of the mountain of horse poop fertilizer.

I love this reminder from Mother Nature that there are gifts from poop.

Failure is going to happen.

In fact, it must happen.

Bad things, unfair things, uncomfortable, unlucky and scary things – all poop.

All gonna happen.

Those things can also be the fertilizer for some of the most beautiful gifts in your life.

Heartwork Journaling prompts

Each time you fail there is a gift, a learning or deepening of self knowledge.

As you do this lesson, think of times in the past that you thought were failures.

• What gift can you find now that proves that failure is fertilizer from that experience?
• What have you been labeling as a failure that you can choose to look at differently?
• Where can you find the gifts or learnings from that crappy situation?
• Where in your life can you REMEMBER and APPLY your new learnings, particularly when crappy things are happening – in real time?

When you catch yourself feeling like a failure now or in the future, remember:

When you fail, YOU are NOT the failure.

You simply experienced a failure.

Failure is fertilizer.

You are on the right track.

Something beautiful, good and expanded will grow from it – if you look to find it.

I’m ready to fail, grow and expand more.

Are you in?

Here are some beautiful examples of this lesson from Heartworkers Julie L .and Sarah D.:

(If you do this lesson, I’d LOVE to see it!)