Armelle
A dear friend of mine is going through a divorce and has started gravitating towards reading self help books and receiving daily affirmations from an app called “iam” to get through the days. I tried the app in solidarity but found the affirmations to be a little too saccharine for my taste.
“I am imperfect, but I love and accept all that I am “
“I am going to achieve all of my dreams”
“I will use these hard time to make me a better person”
I opted instead to read The Subtle Art of not Giving an eff by Mark Manson. The inclusion of the expletive in this supposed self help book made it easier on my pallet. In this book, he talks in Chapter 7 about how failure is the way forward, “improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something” (p. 150).
Somewhere along the way we have been afraid of failure or try to avoid it at all costs. Manson suggests changing the value and its metric. Or as you so eloquently put it “deconstruct the concept of failure entirely” and “shift my focus.“
The more you fail, the more likely you are to succeed. Success comes from improvement and improvement comes from failure. Edison tried many prototypes before getting the lightbulb right - and even that is changing today! It's known that Post-it accidentally created a low tack adhesive when trying to find a really strong one.
How many bright ideas (pun intended to light bulb reference) do we now jot down on a note (clap back to post-its) that may or may never “succeed” (whatever that means).
Bring on the failures!
Comments 2
YES!!! YES!!! I feel you on the saccharine self-help quotes. Never could really do it. Somehow, standing in front of the mirror telling myself things I didn’t really feel felt like another layer of denying my soul. I’d rather crawl into the shadow of my self hatred than to pretend it doesn’t exist. Maybe I can then accept myself fully rather than pretend to be something I’m not.
I look forward to this book. I just saw that Simone Bile’s read it. And I’m all about building the strength to pull a Simone.
I’m feeling like there is something to feeling pride for those shadowy places, too…. gotta dig into that.
I have personally being with ALOT of inner hate lately and giving my self little motivational talks and quotes help me get through the day. When I look in a mirror and see myself I can only think in the negative, however day by day I continue to talk myself up even if it is just a settle “keep going” or “whatever it takes”. These help me in multitudes to carry on with whatever I am doing. Building my inner strength has made me the person I am today.