Moving Through Fear & Failure

It's not how far you fail, but how high you bounce back that counts. So no matter what you are going through in your life, I want you to think about that. Failures sometimes set us back. They cause us to hit the reset button or to shift or pivot or do something different.

And that's okay. It's just showing you how to do something different. But because you failed, you're that much more resilient. Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast.

I'm your host, Amy Sanders. I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love. Hello, my friends.

So if you have been tuning in for the last two months, you may have realized that I have not done my own podcast without a guest speaker for a very long time. It's actually been over two months. And the reason why is because I have been going through a really hard, challenging time in my personal life, which I'm not going to get into on this podcast. But I did want to say it's emotionally and physically, like it's been hard to give to my audience.

And so the way I've been giving to you guys is through other people. So I hope that you have enjoyed the different guests that we've had for the last couple months. And I think in time, I will open up here about some of the challenges that I'm going through. Okay.

So I'm going to start with you. personal life and talk to you guys about a lot of things that I've been learning. I have been faced with stuff I never ever thought that I would be faced with and it has been really challenging but that's not what this episode is about. This episode is actually about fear and failure and I've selected that for this episode for two reasons really.

One, we all tend to get in our own way when it comes to trying new things or when we fail at something we make it mean something personally about us which it doesn't and the second reason is because I was just interviewed by an amazing woman for her podcast and this is what she wanted me to speak to her audience about and as I was speaking to her audience I was like so anyway my audience also needs to know this information so it's time that I hit record and talk to them about fear and failure. So the model which we do talk a lot about as a reminder is circumstances are but how we think about our circumstances really determines our future and how whether or not we do have success whether or not we fell fast and hard and pivot or don't and so failure has been something that I have gotten to be really good friends with. I have failed a lot of times a lot of different businesses but I have also risen above it by staying consistent and trying new things and pivoting and turning into my heart like asking my heart what is it that I need to learn from this? What is it that I want for me?

What do I want for other people? So when it comes to failure ultimately failure really is not the opposite of success. It's actually part of success. As you fail by actually just learning how not to do something because you just learned another way not to do it it's part of success.

Every single successful person I know and I'm talking about success whether it is your like within your personal life, your relationships, your community, your business, your workplace, whatever it is that you define success as a lot of people connect success with money and that's not necessarily true but success comes from the path of failure. It's part of it like you learn as you grow as you move towards success and there's five different things when it comes to failure that are lessons that I have learned that I want to share with you today and the first one is failure actually builds character. When you fail you develop a deeper understanding of your job here on this earth and also yourself. You can grow to new limits and new like achieve new challenges and all the different things by building character through failure.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. The second thing is that it builds compassion. When you fail you learn a lot not just about yourself but about other people and you're able to build character. You're able to build compassion.

You're able to build talk to other people and have compassion for other people in ways that you otherwise wouldn't have because of your experience of failure and so I want you to look at it as a positive thing. Failure builds compassion. You can be there for someone else in a way that otherwise you wouldn't have. You know what journey they're on because you have experienced it.

You can sit with them and have empathy for them with where they are at because you've been there. Failure builds compassion in a way that sometimes other things can't. Third is that failure builds resilience and I have to tell you I have had a lot of different failures in my life. I have started companies that didn't go well.

I have had to close companies or businesses. I'm saying companies really they're all my own little businesses. I've had to close businesses because of my integrity and things weren't going well that way and I had to close and that was but through all of those things it has helped me really be resilient. Failure builds your resiliency.

It teaches you how to be tough, right? It teaches you how to be tough. It teaches you what you actually can stand and how to be stronger. Have you ever had, I'm laughing because of my current situation, but have you ever had people be like oh my gosh you're so strong and you're like I don't want to be strong.

I don't want to be strong. Because you're maybe in a hard spot. As you're going through that hard spot or as you fell that resiliency totally can and will define you. So think about that like as you're going through different challenges and for whatever reason I swear that right now so many people, so many people are going through challenging times.

I don't understand it but it feels like there's this really big shift that's happening and a lot of people are getting challenged in ways that they thought they would. I know that that is true for me right now but we can move through it. The fourth is that it builds creativity. So when you fail at something and you learn just another way not to do it, your mind goes to work if you will allow it to.

That is the key piece. If you will allow it to you can start asking questions that maybe you haven't asked yourself before. Okay so that didn't work. What else can I do?

Can I create a puzzle? That's going to attract more people to me. Can I reach out to that company that I've been scared to reach out to? What are other ways that I can make this work for me?

And so as you fell you do have to get creative. How long am I going to stay in this place? How else, like what other options do I have? Is this the path that's actually correct for me right now?

You know that it gives your creative space to go to work and come up with solutions for you which is an amazing thing. The fifth thing is fear of failure is even worse than the failure itself and that's what I want to talk mostly about today is so often we're so scared of failing or we're so scared of what other people think of us that we don't even get started because we are scared about what could happen. But when you do that it's worse than the failure itself because you have already failed. By not trying you have failed.

You've told yourself that you can't do it and you're proving that it's true because you're not going to work to do it. And I want to talk about my life around this. So when I was leaving my ex-husband it took me a long time to get to that decision because it was so scary. I was so scared of my future which is what kept me in that relationship.

I was so scared of my future. I was so scared of my relationship for so long. You know it was what I knew for 11 years like this was the lifestyle that I had been living for 11 years. This was my husband.

These were my kids. This is the neighborhood that we were living in. It was familiar and I had relationships around me in that space. But leaving created so much stress and fear.

I didn't know how I was going to make ends meet. I didn't know what this was going to mean for my children that I loved so much and I didn't want to put them through a divorce. I didn't know how I was going to make ends meet. I didn't know how I was going to be single for the rest of my life.

I didn't know anything about my future. It was like a completely blank slate that I was now faced with stay in this relationship that doesn't serve you that is not healthy and stay unhappy or move through this fear and figure it out. When you move through the fear you get to see and realize that it's okay. You're okay.

One of my favorite quotes which I'm sure I've said on other podcasts is the cave you fear holds the treasure you seek. I was so scared to leave that relationship because of so many reasons. Also what people would think about me. How our relationships, my relationships with certain couple friends that were dear to my heart, how that would change because we're no longer a couple.

How my kids would be affected. If they would have friends at school or if they would be judged because they're from a quote-unquote broken home. There were so many things that went through mind for a long time before I left and when I left I had to move through those fears. Meeting ends that was something that was really hard to do in the beginning.

I did not have the money to make ends meet. I had to figure it out but as I moved through that I did become really resilient and I figured it out and I tell you this because you can too. I want to offer you that fear is just a feeling that doesn't feel good. You're not going to die.

Your kids aren't getting kidnapped. Your kids aren't going to die. Your lifestyle is not necessarily going to change right now as you feel this fear. It's just a feeling but what can happen on the other side of it is where you grow.

It's where you develop. It's where you become that more potent amazing version of yourself. So when I left my ex-husband my entire world changed. Yes there were a lot of scary things and there was a lot that I had to figure out but it opened up my opportunity for a new life for myself and for my kids.

Had I not left that relationship our lives would be completely different right now starting with me being very unhappy and not the mom that I want to be for my children. We would have lived in our lifestyle would be probably just above poverty level because that is what our lifestyle was for 11 years. We were hanging right around poverty level and no judgment there for those of you guys who are tuning in but that's not what I wanted for me. I knew I was meant for more and I wanted more for myself.

I knew I was meant for for my kids. I wanted my kids to be able to play whatever sports it was that they wanted to play no matter how expensive. I wanted to take them on vacations and have experiences. I wanted them to live in a safe beautiful neighborhood with amazing individuals in that neighborhood that have ambition that they could look to as examples.

That's what I wanted. I wanted me to be happy and loved and treated with respect. Now is my life happily ever after? I already told you at the beginning of this episode that we're going to be happy and loved and treated with respect.

I'm not going to be through some hard stuff right now but my life is so much more full because I moved through that fear. Because I took that step of faith knowing that okay if I believe that I'm meant for happiness I've got to move through these fears because they're holding me back. They've been holding me back for a long time. Look at your life and ask yourself what is it that is holding you back?

Where are you playing small? What is it that your heart is like just desiring to do? Maybe try something new. What is it that you're holding back?

Maybe try something new. Maybe open up a small business. Invest in real estate. What is it that you want but you're scared to do?

And then ask yourself why? Because usually whatever it is that we're you know fearing isn't really that bad. It's just a feeling. So what if someone judges you?

That's on them. That's not on you. You make a phone call and someone tells you no about a business. Then what?

Guess what? You just got a little more resilient because you just heard the word no. But if you go through enough no's you're going to get a little more you're going to get the yeses. It's a guaranteed thing.

That's what statistics are. What if you open up your heart again? It's been broken. You've been betrayed.

You've been hurt. You aren't sure that you can love again. But what if you open up your heart and trust that you are worthy of love and you end up having an amazing, fulfilling, incredible relationship because you are able to open up? I know this episode is not about love, but the more you love, the more you give love, the less of all those other negative emotions you're going to have.

I promise you. It's not how far you fail, but how high you bounce back that counts. So no matter what you are going through in your life, I want you to think about that. Failures sometimes set us back.

They cause us to hit the reset button or to shift or pivot or do something different. And that's okay. It's just showing you how to do something different. But because you failed, you're that much more resilient.

Your character is that much stronger. Your brain gets to go to work to figure out new ways to do something different. But you now have that little nugget of wisdom that you otherwise did not have because you got out there, because you tried. You got out there and said, I'm going to do it anyway.

I don't know what the end result is, but that's okay. Because I'm putting trust and belief in myself, in me. I want to offer you to fail often. Do scary things often.

Move through the fear and see if you can do it. If you can do it, then you can do it. See what happens. Like I said, the cave you fear holds the treasure you seek.

You've got to go into that cave. You've got to go into the darkness to find the treasure, to get to your goal, to realize your dreams. All of these things come when we play big. I want you to play big in your life.

I want you to ask yourself, what else can I do? How else can I play big? What is it that I'm just dying to try, but I'm a little scared to do it? Is it just me?

Is there something you can do every single day that's a little uncomfortable or even a lot uncomfortable? The more uncomfortable you get, the more exciting and interesting life gets. I promise you that. I am living proof of that for sure.

Go through the hard. Go through the fear. Move through it all so that you can have the most amazing, abundant, potent life possible. That's what I want to offer you today.

Fear is not a bad thing. It's actually an amazing thing that leads you to success. It shows you how to move forward in success. I hope that you do challenge yourself to move through the fear.

And that is what I have for you today. So take care. It was great hanging out here talking and just being with my audience. So I always appreciate you tuning in.

And again, if you enjoy this episode, share it with those people. May need to hear it and go after any and all dreams that you have. I will be back here next week. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, then you've got to come check out my signature program at Thrive Camp. This is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation. I teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can unlock your true potential. And create the life you love.

For more info, go to amysanders. co forward slash thrive dash camp. Again, that's amysanders. co forward slash thrive dash camp.

Let's get to work and thrive together.