Welcome to Our New Podcast: Fail It to Nail It
Listen to the Episode Here
Topics discussed in this episode
Defining failure and success
Why are we focusing on failure?
Why do people struggle with failure?
Dichotomy with success and failure
Challenge to practice embracing failure
Episode summary
Introduction
Ryan here! I am so excited to share that my co-host, Lindsey, and I have officially begun our podcast, “Fail It to Nail It”! The podcast's purpose is to provide an additional free resource for our students, families, clinicians, and other professionals in the field. Our goal for the podcast is to help you build resilience through the process of growth and develop skills to thrive all while de-stigmatizing failure. We will be bringing on some awesome guests who will share success stories, but we are excited to hear about their failures, setbacks, and struggles and how they’ve thrived despite them. We want all of you to recognize that your growth will come from the same failures that you fear. Trust me, I also fear failure! This fear is hard-wired into our brains but is debilitating for many people. How can we have a healthy fear of failure, reduce stress, be productive, be data-driven, have setbacks, and still face that fear head-on? We will be exploring all of this!
Get to know your hosts
In our first episode, Lindsey and I address who we are, why we care, and our thoughts on failure and growth. I am a mental health therapist and the CEO of Level-Up Life. Lindsey is a nutritionist and our Health and Wellness Director. Together, we help students struggling with academics and independent living due to executive functioning hurdles, mental health disorders, strained relationships, whatever it may be. We approach care more holistically and because of this, we see a lot of opinions and perceptions on failure. Our students may find huge success in academics but because they are still struggling in managing a sleep schedule, cooking healthy meals, socializing regularly, and meditating daily, you name it, they feel like they are a failure. How did Lindsey and I address this in our episode?
Dichotomy of Failure and Success
Our brains love to attach meaning and value to many activities, whether by our own volition or others’. After some time, especially after seeing how we and others are treated based on those actions, we develop a sense of worth based on whether we do those activities. Common ones that I see with my clients are in academics, fitness, and social skills, among others that reap large social rewards. Oddly, we like to carry something such as our academic prowess into situations where others may not know how we perform academically yet we act as though our worth has been dictated by it. We have now identified ourselves with that trait and the value we attached to that trait. No matter where we go, we act and think in that way before we get feedback from others. This self-defeating behavior is how people find themselves in situations where they struggle to find evidence that they are anything but what they expect to find. Any new evidence that arises later that may counter this base belief becomes less relevant.
Whenever people try to make changes and adjustments in their lives, they will be combating this core belief. For many, it can take substantial, grandiose, confetti-showering success to feel like there is something worth challenging a previous belief that we are failures. Thus, the dichotomy of success and failure is born. Lindsey and I talked about this dynamic and how people struggle to change beliefs and behavior if they can only feel good about behavior change when they see 100% success as opposed to any growth or progress. For people to make lasting changes and feel pride in any amount of growth, 100% or not, is often necessary as it allows an acceptance of shortcomings or failures.
Lindsey mentioned an experience with a client trying the 75 hard challenge. I was unfamiliar with it until she brought it up on the podcast, so for those who also do not know, it is a challenge where for 75 days straight you follow a strict diet, exercise routine, drink a gallon of water, sleep routine, etc. If you miss a single day, you start over from the beginning. This client tried it when she was in college and it changed her life. Now she is a mother of several children. She is incredibly busy and missed one day in this challenge within the first week, which was difficult for her to handle. She considered herself to be a failure and felt she couldn’t improve. From Lindsey’s perspective, this client after years of not making health changes made multiple for several days in a row. This was a huge success! Additionally, if after missing a day of the challenge, this client continued the challenge the next day, she likely would meet her end goal of losing weight, having more energy, and feeling more positive. Rather than thinking of it as “I’m back at day 1 and therefore, I have not grown at all” as the client did, Lindsey would have liked her client to instead think “out of 8 days, I did my health plan for 7 days!” The numbers matter little for the point Lindsey was trying to make, which is that this client was so focused on the goal itself that her process of progress was neglected and ignored. Her successes were invisible and likely would have been until she neared 75 straight days of progress. Many of us looking through the window would be happy with her growth after 1 day of change after years of stagnation but looking at ourselves, we are unhappy unless we hit 100% success all the time, every time.
