Who has never felt like they failed in their lives? Failed in relationships, career, business, investments, money?

Who has never made decisions that did not bring the expected outcome?

The worst part of failing is not failing itself but the feelings that accompany it.

The embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear of what other people are saying about you, the feeling of letting people down, feeling defeated or even losing your ability to trust in yourself and your decisions.

The worst part is to turn failure into your identity and let that take over your whole world and being.

I as an entrepreneur failed a lot. Entrepreneurship was not in my family’s blood.

My mum is a creative genius, an artist who has been a housewife since I’ve known her and also dedicated her life to looking after my sister who has Down Syndrome.

My father, well he does have the personality of an entrepreneur but never pursued that as a main thing, so he ended up working for someone else his entire life.

I had no idea of what was like to make money from my ideas or even doubted that I was the person to do it.

I didn’t have the skills I needed to pursue my business visions and break through the matrix cycle of working for someone else so I could afford to survive. I have nothing against it but is just not my thing.

I didn’t have the self-esteem, self-trust and understanding that making mistakes is something you do and that it makes you even better at what you do.

I did not know how to detach myself and who I was from the mistakes and the outcome I had in business.

I made my failures about me, about who I was and that became an identity.

It became who I was in business: A failure.

It became who I was in sales: A failure.

It became who I was at making money in business: A failure.

It became who I was at helping others: A failure.

And that was engrained inside of me to the point I didn’t even realise it was there and I started to run my business from that energy… so when clients didn’t sign up I was not surprised, when something didn’t work out I was not surprised, when the money didn’t come in I was not surprised. I got used to it.

Failing became something normal to me and I began to put success on a pedestal.

And when you make something your normal, well, it becomes your normal.

So how do you overcome failure and develop a success identity?

Here are the 5 steps to help you with that.

Step 1: Don’t run away from the shame, guilt, embarrassment and blame. Part of processing your failures is to be brave enough to take responsibility for them and feel the feelings. Until you haven’t processed the feelings they will follow you like a ghost and trigger you at every opportunity.

Remember, failing has built your character, has made you stronger and has taught you things you did not know before. Failing can be a good thing as long as you don’t turn them into your identity and into your new normal.

Step 2: Now that you’ve made peace with your failure feelings, recognise how did it serve you? How has it contributed to the person you are today? To the skills you've developed? Add everything you learned to your tool belt and keep building the life you came here to live.

Step 3: Reframe failure: What failure actually means to you? How can you make it not much of a big deal? How can you manage the next time you think you have failed and turn that into something good for you?

Step 4: Fuck turning failure into your new normal, write a letter to your old unsuccessful self and decide that it will stay in the past. Decide how things are going to work for you from now on in every area of your life, cultivate the feelings of success and make that your new normal. Start looking for pieces of evidence everywhere that you are successful, and in case you can't find the evidence, create them yourself and your mind will naturally start looking for more and more evidence that you are successful.

Step 5: Cultivate gratitude. I know it sounds like a cliché but having a gratitude practice in your daily life will increase your feelings of well-being, and self-confidence and will bring more opportunities your way.

If this was helpful to you, feel free to share it with other like-minded souls.

Ready to receive support to create more fulfilment & success in your life, career & business? Find out more about how my coaching can empower you HERE.