It Changed My Life
3 Reasons Why You Will Fail
From my mother’s “encouraging” words
Maybe you had encouraging parents that took the time to show you what you could learn from your mistakes. Perhaps your mother showed you support no matter how many times you messed up. It could be that you had one parent that was encouraging and the other just didn’t seem to care. I would hope that you had at least one parent that celebrated your victories with you.
I never had any of those.
Instead, I could boil down my mother’s encouraging words of why I will fail down into three things.
- You’re ugly.
- You’re stupid.
- You’re worthless.
As I grew up, I began to accept these three things as a description of who I was. Whenever something didn’t go as planned, or just the way I wanted, it was because of one of those reasons. As you can imagine, those encouraging words became ingrained in my psyche.
It doesn’t have to stay that way.
“You are ugly.”
If the bee is in the hand, what is in the eye?
There are many things in life that are a matter of perspective. How we perceive things usually stems from our experiences as children. For me, my experience was being told, in many different ways, that I was ugly. “You’d have more friends if you looked better”, was one of my mom’s favorite when it came to my looks. “Girls don’t like ugly boys.” I heard that more than a few times.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I was and still am, hesitant when it comes to the dating scene. I look in the mirror and all I hear is “You’re ugly.” Okay, so maybe that’s not all I hear. I also hear “repugnant, disgusting, repulsive…” you get the idea. All because of the encouragement I got from my mother.
I also experienced it in the workplace. Getting passed over for a position because the other applicant was better looking. The assumption that I couldn’t do secretarial work because I didn’t have attractive gams seemed ridiculous to me, but it was the way people thought. It still is.
I once had an incident where all my interviews were done over the phone. I had three interviews and was asked to come in and fill out the paperwork and do one more interview. The same person I had been speaking with for the last two interviews. I got dressed in my finest office attire, nice shoes, combed hair — the works. Except that within five minutes of him seeing me, I was told that the position had already been filled. What’s a guy to think?
It’s sad that looks have such power over becoming successful but what makes it worse is how, when we perceive ourselves as less attractive or overly attractive, it gets reflected back to us. We have to accept a few things.
- My face doesn’t write.
- My face doesn’t calculate.
- My face doesn’t create.
- If everyone would carry a bee in their hand, maybe they would see more beauty. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
“You are stupid.”
Have you ever made a mistake? I know I have. Repeatedly. Not the same one, usually, because I learn from those mistakes. I’m free to make new mistakes. Over and over again. A never-ending cycle. I will never not make mistakes.
We shouldn’t have an issue with making a mistake, but some of us are more affected by it than others. For some, it could be because they’re sensitive. I know I am. For others, it could be because they were taught that they weren’t allowed to make mistakes.
“Errors are for stupid people. If you had any brains at all, you would get it right the first time.”
With brains in my feet, as my mother would say, I failed quite a bit. I didn’t get all A’s, which was fine for other people but not for me. A 95% on a test meant failure. Failure meant I was stupid. Stupid meant that I will always fail.
There was a cycle of such encouragement for most of my life. I could have become bitter and spread that way of thinking onto anyone else that might have messed up, but that wasn’t who I was. I was the kind of person that took the abuse, absorbed it, and tried to put out the opposite. Maybe that was dumb of me, but I don’t care.
I still berate myself for making mistakes but I also try to encourage myself as well. It’s a battle that continues to this day and one that I will likely struggle with till the end of my days.
“You are worthless.”
Here’s the summation of why I will always fail.
Because I’m worthless.
Why do I say that? Well, because I’m ugly and stupid. Ugly people don’t make friends and stupid people always make mistakes. If you don’t have friends and can’t do anything right then you must be worthless. Right?
If you look at all the different ways people can be considered a success, I miss the mark at every turn. I have few friends, no relationship, no money, psychological issues that affect my physical abilities, and I’m unattractive. Oh, did I mention I’m a defensive pessimist? I can’t imagine why.
Yes, sarcasm, that’s one of my defenses.
But what makes a person worthless besides what I mentioned above? It’s how we feel about ourselves. The encouragement I received led me not only to the bottom of a well but the bottom of a well at the bottom of a lake that was covered by a landslide.
My perspective of myself had become the embodiment of everything my mother said about me.
Deny those reasons.
My mind had to reason that failure was caused by one of those three things. Not only that, it had to accept that failure was just an inevitable part of my life. Because I’m not attractive — I will fail.
Have you seen the Guru’s that have a large following, or anyone that has a large following? They’re attractive. They fit the norm of what is considered handsome or pretty. The men have large muscles, square jaws, stern faces, bright smiles, and kind eyes. The women have high cheekbones, great figures, perfect teeth, and shiny hair. They’re attractive and they’re successful. That means if you want to be successful you have to be attractive. Right?
What makes a person stupid? Not learning from their mistakes is one. Ignorance does not mean stupid. It simply means uninformed. When you become informed and still refuse to change your view, that’s stupidity. Making mistakes and not being perfect doesn’t make a person stupid. Repeating those mistakes and being unwilling to admit them is the problem.
Success and failure aren’t opposites but rather components of the same thing.
When you look at successful people or the portrayal of successful people, they are perceived to be smart. A good many of them have smart people behind them to help with that appearance.
The more exposure a person gets, the more they need someone to help them to appear better than they really are. It’s a facade. An acceptable one, but a facade nonetheless. Sure, the person may have some level of intelligence, but it wasn’t their intellect alone that brought them success.
Worth and worthless, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has worth. Even me. The ugly, stupid person that will always fail. I have no problem with failing. I use it now. The failures have become my stepping stones. I see what works and what doesn’t work for me.
I keep moving upward, not just forward. I see my destination and act as though I am already there. Will I have setbacks? You better believe it. It’s a part of the climb. I don’t care if I scrape my knee now and again or get a bruise on my hand from the climb.
Why do you fail?
It’s a question we’ve all had to ask ourselves at one point or another. It comes with answers that are usually untrue. You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re worthless. They’re all lies. There are other answers that come to mind as well. Wrong place at the wrong time. Missed opportunities. Misfortune. Bad luck. Those too are lies.
The reason you fail is so that you can learn to succeed. Success and failure aren’t opposites but rather components of the same thing. Success requires failure if that success is to have any meaning at all. Consider this when you turn on a light. The failures in experiments with electricity and the light bulb were necessary so that you are able to power on your computer and read this page.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid to not move forward and upward. Success is built on the stones others throw at us when we mess up.
Let them throw bricks, I’m building a mansion.
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