Success Or Failure: Do You Feel Like a Failure?

Do you feel like a failure?

Have you ever felt like you were not good enough no matter what you tried to do or how many times you tried to do it? Have you ever felt like no matter how much better you get at doing something, there's always someone else who's there to tell you that you could have done it better?

Please understand I am a firm believer in continually striving to do better. However, it is never a pleasant experience for me when someone else points out my faults regardless of how well-meaning their intentions can be.

Even as a child it was clear to me what failure looked like, and those who failed shamefully had to tolerate the heckling and laughter of others at their expense. This crude treatment was less than encouraging.

When I lost custody of my children, I kept to myself as much as possible. I didn't want to be reminded repeatedly of what a failure as a mother I'd become. The event caused me to think of myself as a failure, a feeling I bore from the judgment of others. It changed my life.

Strangely enough, I knew the critics were basing their opinion of me as a mother on the outcome of the custody battle rather than how I performed as a mother. I don't know what it is about us humans, but we seem to have to look for validation of ourselves from another human. Though, in reality that's just our perception.

When considering a supposed failure, have you ever wondered...

Did I make a positive difference in this scenario? Do I know what that difference is?

Did I somehow contribute to this failure?

What exactly IS the failure? What would success look like in this particular situation?

Is failure the beginning of success? Would I even recognize success without failure and if so, then do I need to have experienced failure in order to have success?

Am I really a failure, or am I a success because of my failure?

So, what is success? What does it mean to you? What does that word look like to you in your world? Can you become a failure without knowing what it is to be successful?

This is what I have come to learn:

First of all, failure is not a person! Failure is recognized as an unsuccessful act, non-performance, insufficiency, deterioration, or condition of something expected. Inadequately "doing" something does not automatically turn you into "becoming" something. After all, who were you moments BEFORE you made the attempt to do the thing that failed?

When going through the feelings of failure, why do you automatically seem to question who we are?

What is the truth? Do we really know? Or do we truly know yet allow others to talk us out of what we know?

You might wonder where I am going with this train of thought. I am leading up to all the negative self-talk, monkey-mind, voices in our head, chatter, or whatever we choose to call it that tells us something different than what we feel.

It makes me wonder if I didn't really know truth all along and didn't question it until people gave me a reason to do so. Have you ever done something you really wanted to do and then felt badly about it only because someone else told you that you were bad for doing it?

It's got to do with that word failure.

So, maybe failure is a necessary thing after all. And maybe if we recognize it as just another part of life we could talk about it in a more positive connotation, and keep it in a perspective of a behavioral trait rather than a label we should stick on ourselves or someone else.

My hope is for you to look at failure as a way to reach your full potential so that you can be all you were meant to be and reject any notion of using the word to identify a person, particularly YOU!

Mary's 20 years of experience in dealing with trauma dedicated her to become one of the leading experts in transforming pain to pleasure in women's lives. Mary is a loving mom and after the loss of custody of her own children, has created a company that stands as the voice for mothers who have lost custody of their children. Grab a copy of her free eBook, "8 Critical Steps to Transforming Your Life after Losing Custody!" at my website, marydirksen.com. Providing useful self development, self empowerment and self esteem tips and reviews online.