Part 14 - Unlocking Deep Health Exploring Gretchen Rubin's 'The Happiness Project' Secrets"

The next point on Gretchen's Paradoxes on Happiness list that we've been exploring, and how I relate it to overall deep health, expands further on the previous post.

Succeed by failing

We're so funny, us humans, aren't we?

-In LIFE for example, we teach our kids to TRY, learn from our experience and try again. At least I hope most kids are taught this....

-In sports, you grow up PRACTICING. PRACTICE means try again, and again and again. Learn. Develop. Improve.

-In music, same thing - PRACTICE practice practice.

-In business you try something (opening a business, a product, a new service) and you learn from it. You adjust. You grow/change.

Just like STRESS, we NEED failure to be HUMAN.

Adaptation is part of nature

Nature adapts. Humans are nature, even though we act like we're "above it". We are here today because our species is so adaptable. Stress and failure are two things that are INEVITABLE in life that allow us to become stronger, more resilient and grow inside and out. Yet we do our best to avoid it for fear of "looking bad" to our peers or simply because it doesn't feel good.

Again, we put up a barrier in maintaining and/or improving our health when fear of failure is present. I've seen clients avoid an exercise for example because they "think they can't do it well". Which is true! They maybe can't. But they can't because they've never practiced it before! Not because they're a failure or they suck at it. Because they've never practiced it. That's all.

We learn by failing so many other facets of life. I gave some examples above already, but hey - why not add some more shall we?

-Learning to walk as an infant. Fall down ("fail"). Get back up and try again. Repeat.

-Learning to read.

-Learning to write.

-Learning to do math.

-Learning a new job.

I think you get my point...

It's everywhere. Succeeding by failing is HOW HUMANS LIVE. And yet in health, we work completely against that nature. When we work against nature, that's where we struggle, where we create unwanted stress and when we mentally and emotionally beat ourselves up.

Remember, as we mentioned in the previous post:

Health is NOT a competition.

There is NOT an end point in health. It's a lifestyle - FOR LIFE.

There's NO RUSH.

Embrace the "ah-ha" moments. USE THEM to your advantage in allowing you to be your best self inside and out.