Success and Failure – Taking a mindfulness perspective

Success and ‘Failure’: Taking a mindfulness  perspective

Success stories are the stories that we can’t get enough of.  A success story is one that everyone can enjoy, especially when someone has had to overcome incredible challenges. There are so many biographies, novels, self- help books, podcasts, and documentaries that can fill your appetite for a great success story.

A whole lot of wonderful feelings can come when you enjoy success –  feeling elated, excited, hopeful, inspired and maybe also feeling relieved too. Many people feel comfortable about sharing their success stories and most people will be open to hearing them.

When we turn to failure – there’s a very different story. Many people prefer to keep their ‘failure story’ including all their disappointments, fears, worries and doubts to themselves. It is painful to have a ‘failure’, whatever  that failure may be and we all know this from our own experiences.

Taking a mindfulness approach, you can develop different perspectives about  your experience and to re-frame. Mindfulness helps you to  understand that your thoughts and feelings are constantly changing and are never permanent or fixed.  You don’t need to be stuck with re-visiting a failure story or identifying with it.

Mindfulness will also help you to realise that you are not the only person who has had this experience and that you are not alone.  Knowing this can be very healing in itself.

From my perspective, there is no such thing as failure. Instead of  using the word ‘failure’, I always prefer to use kinder and gentler words such as ‘learning experience’ or  ‘stepping stone to greater wisdom’. However painful it may be, you do get a chance to learn something new and positive about yourself.  Your experience also helps you to open your heart to compassion for both yourself and for others.