Right now I’m in the middle of several projects at the same time and instead of throwing something together for you, I decided to spend a coffee moment with you and just share about me. And I welcome you to email me and continue any conversation that you would like to have.
By nature I like being a person who has all the answers. Sometimes it’s because there are so many people out there who don’t have the answers and nothing is more frustrating than hearing someone say they don’t know. I also love researching and learning new things. I like being a person who says I don’t know but here is what I found out…. And in the last few years I’ve embraced those failure moments where things, methods, ideas just don’t work out. I no longer have a fear of saying that I failed at something. The brilliance of failing is that the failure is not the end all be all. I’ve come to the knowledge that failure in one attempt or ten attempts just means that something didn’t work in the process. Life isn’t static. It isn’t pass/fail on one attempt. Everything is a process. And it’s a process that incorporates the effects and influences of things outside us.
In the crafting world, there are so many methods out there where you have to make this item doing x, y and z in that precise order. But in reality, sometimes the person who makes the steps are aware of outside influences that can change how things turn out, or it’s just not something on their radar.
For example, in a crafting group someone was commenting on how the scorch pen didn’t work for a recommended group craft and they fault was on the pen instead of the recommended scorch paste. I’ve used the pen months before and I had the exact failure that she mentioned. But the difference in approach of project failure came down to the framework of thinking. I can’t vouch for what this crafter thought inside of her head, how she reacted emotionally. I can only assess by the phrases used in an online forum. The phrasing indicated that this lady attributed the craft failure to using the pen instead of the paste and the additional contributing factor of not using the exact same heat source (for burning the chemicals) were the reason why she couldn’t obtain the desired effect. On a different response level, I shared with her how I used the same product, used what was supposed to be the “correct” heat source, and still got the same results. It wasn’t the heat source. And it wasn’t the chemical source for that matter either. When I obtained a failed result, I noticed something. The chemical from the pen bled because of the wood grains. The scorch pen didn’t bleed in all directions. It bled in the direction where the wood grain left a miniature channel for the liquid to migrate around instead of remaining in the partitioned area created by the stencil. This same failure could have still been had with the scorch paste if the grain ridges were deep enough for the paste to be pushed through the stencil or seep out and under.
The problem wasn’t the product.
The problem was the outside source.
The solution, even though I haven’t yet gone back to prove this for an absolute fact, is sanding the wood to make sure there is nowhere for the chemical product to move outside the stencil.
Life is so much like this. We see a result in someone and we try to go through their steps of getting that desired thing in our own lives. But for one reason, or several, it doesn’t give us the result that we desire. We chalk this up to failure. It feeds into our current (or long lasting) insecurities and feeds our preconceived ideas of ourselves.
“I tried that once…” It didn’t work. They were wrong. They have (knowledge, education, resources, money, family, time, support, etc.) that I don’t have. They had the chance that I didn’t have. I’m just a failure.
How many of those statements have we used in our own lives to excuse why something didn’t work?
What other statements have you used?
For the life of me I cannot remember what caused that triggered in me the need to be perfect. But perfectionism is a disease that eats at you just as much as being a serial failure. Sure a part of me hated letting other people down. But what ate me up the most is when I let myself down. I see in my head how things should be, how they should play out, and I use to beat myself up each and every time I failed those self expectations. I made myself miserable with these failures. Not just the event/activity but how I failed myself, sometimes repeatedly.
The turning point, for me, in this viewpoint of failure happened in college. I was interested in becoming a doctor and took the list of pre-med classes. I was challenged and I excelled in all the lower level classes. I watched others wash out and I was proud of myself for meeting my expectations.
Until….
I hit the wall that I just couldn’t break through. It didn’t matter how light or hard I hit those bricks, that wall would not move. It didn’t matter which angle I came from, there was not a chink in that mortar to gain leverage. There was no going above the wall, under it, or around it.
Organic Chemistry and Advanced Calculus kicked my butt and won.
I had to change my focus and get my degree in another area, one that felt like an easy out because it came natural to me.
BUT…
I took a chance in going in a direction. I learned the human body and how the world works around it. I learned more than what I should actually write here. And even though I “failed” I learned information that I still use today. I understand my body, how it should work, and know what questions to ask and research when it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work.
That education also translated into understanding how my garden works even though I never took a botany or agriculture class.
Yes, my initial moment in failure devastated me. To no end! It was the first time I ever truly failed out of something where I couldn’t work my way out. But my walking away learning moment from that complete and utter failure is that there is always something to learn, pull from, and still have tools that I can walk away with.
The world is so quick to define failure as a hard STOP, do not cross, you cannot move beyond this point. But nothing can be further from the truth!!!
Failure is just the simple fact that something did NOT work. It’s NOT a reflection of you. It DOESN’T even define you. Failure IS simply a method that did not work.
Let me rephrase that.
Failure is simply a METHOD that did not work.
You are not a failure. You are never a failure. In fact, the secret of life is that you cannot fail. Ever.
There are always countless options in front of you when you see that failure is not a description of who you are as a person. When you switch the focus from you being a failure to the method of life being a failure, you suddenly see that there is so much out there for you that you couldn’t see before.
In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that when people tell you, “You are a failure” or “You failed me” it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! Instead it’s them shifting their own failure onto you because they can’t face or deal with the failure in their own lives.
So the answer to the post’s question is YES! Yes, you can do that.
And this is the heart behind these blogs. I talk a lot of about crafts, decorating, and food. These are areas that I’m passionate about and having working knowledge with. I dabble in a lot of other areas. And because of that I can say that these principles also work in all areas in life.
If you want to know why I walk with confidence and talk with confidence because I know I’m not a failure.
You’re not a failure
I take every moment, task, event, problem and look at the outside variables. There’s always something else that is an acting influence on what is happening and in some instances, not happening.
My goal is to enable you to see that you’re not a failure. You literally can do anything you want to do. If you want to pursuit a goal you march yourself right up to it. If you hit a wall you can’t go under, over, or around that you redirect yourself. BUT you take with you everything that you learned along the way. When life gives you a dead end, it is not failure. It IS a defining moment where you see the parameters of what you are gifted for in life. You can go to the left or the right and keep that wall on your side. Or you can keep the wall to your back and keep moving forward. The purpose is that you keep moving forward.
And when you hit another wall, you found another boundary, showing you where your purpose lies.
There are some people who feel like all they do is hit one wall after another. My question is this. Are you hitting the same wall over and over again? Or have you just hit all the walls around your boundary and not understood their meaning?
If you’re hitting wall after wall, the focus should be turned away from the walls themselves and focusing in on this specific area inside all these walls. This is your gifting in life!
In fact, if you’re the one who feels like you’re always hitting the walls, you are at an advantage to someone who never feels the pain of trying and ramming the walls. You actually see the definition of where you are weak, the things outside of your wheelhouse. You can turn away from all those and see more clearly what your strengths are. And you can see more clearly what your purpose in life is all about.
The world is good at making us focus on the walls or glass ceilings. Because if we focus on the walls or the limitations in life we’re not seeing who we were designed to be. We are easily controlled and manipulated. We are easy to put into depression and give up on life.
BUT when we see our strengths and our calling, we are a powerhouse!
Each and every person alive has a purpose, because there is not another person like you. There is not another person like me. You have a specific meaningful job and function on this planet that others need that only you can provide. I need you. I need you because you’re not me. I don’t care what the mirror on your wall shows, that image does not define you. You reside inside your body. And that is where your purpose resides. You can be the most different person from me and I will still need you, because you have something inside you, at your core that we all need.
How I Can Do That 
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