I've been having lots of conversations about success and failure over the last few weeks. It's an interesting topic and one that we are going to dive into today.

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We view success positively and failure negatively. But if you ask any successful person they would tell you they failed 99 times and succeeded on the 100th try. So why do we view failure in such a negative light?

Most of us fear failure. We play small and hold ourselves back so that we don't have to feel vulnerable if things don't work out. If you don't try then you can't fail. But if you never put yourself out there are you really learning, growing, and morphing into the person you are meant to be? Or are you keeping yourself from reaching your full potential?

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I know for sure that I've failed more times than I've succeeded. I could have allowed those failures to keep me stuck where I was but instead, I used each failure as a tool to learn what worked and what didn't. I acted like a detective, knowing this was a puzzle with a solution, not an obstacle I couldn't overcome.

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So many of us look at failure as a sign that you should stop whatever it is you are doing, give up, and stay where you are. It's safer there, you don't have to put yourself out there or have any of that the feelings that are associated with not getting the result you wanted. But will this really give us the life we want for ourselves?

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Failure can also be seen as an opportunity to figure out what needs to happen or change for you to be successful. This may be how most of us would like to approach our lives but we aren't sure we have what it takes.

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I was working with a business mentor the other day and he said, "When you go after anything in life, you either get what you want (result) or you get what you need (lesson)."

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Very rarely do we land on an approach the first time that works 100%. It takes trial and error to figure out what works and what doesn't. Even the things that do work initially often need to be revamped over time as people change and so do the habits they want in their life.

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Habits that worked for me 10 years ago have morphed over time to help me level up to the habits I have today. When I first became a vegetarian I had no idea what to eat so I ate a lot of potatoes and pasta. The recipes that I experiment with today would have seemed out of my league 25 years ago. I kept the recipes I chose simple and allowed the level of difficulty to grow organically. But on the way, I tried recipes that were incredibly challenging and beyond my skill set and I failed repeatedly. This didn't stop me, I kept allowing myself to experiment with things so my skill set could grow.

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When we don't succeed at whatever we were trying to do, we already have vital information. We know something that doesn't work.

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Most of us get stuck here, we think that our lack of success says something about us. We get into the whole I'm not good enough, I always fail at this, and all the other stories you tell yourself about why things didn't work.

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When babies first start walking they don't know how to do it right away. They wobble and fall A LOT! Could you imagine if they decided they weren't good enough because they didn't know how to do something new on their first or second try? Or if after the third fall, they decided they were never going to try to walk because clearly they aren't good enough to do it?

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But babies don't come with the baggage we've saddled ourselves with over the years. With each attempt, they learn something new. They keep at it and the next attempt gets a little easier and a little easier until they are walking.

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Would you look at a baby and tell them they will never learn how to walk because they have been unsuccessful 99 times? No, you would keep encouraging them to try again. You would clap your hands in encouragement, hug them when they fall, and get filled with excitement when they take a few wobbly steps.

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But when it comes to our habits, we think we should know how to do everything on the first try. We get rigid when things don't work out and criticize ourselves for not being able to do the thing. We don't pay attention to the lessons being presented because we are so focused on the result we are not getting. We forget to be excited and curious about the process.

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Successful habits are not created overnight. They are the result of multiple iterations of doing the thing, failing, figuring out what doesn't work, and trying again, and again, and again until you figure out what does work.

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Even when you figure out what works, you will continue to refine those habits over time. Our habits are not static. What we need changes, so we adapt and pivot to make our habits work.

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If you have been struggling with your habits, maybe it's time to look at it from a new angle. Stop letting what isn't working dictate your life, get creative, start playing with new approaches, learn from what didn't work, and keep going. You can only fail at your habits if you stop trying to do them.

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Be kind to yourself. There is no way we can be perfect at something new. Try to look at whatever you are doing as an experiment, keep learning, keep being open, and keep being creative. You can do hard things. You've proven that in a million different ways.

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I'm over here cheering you on! Keep going!