Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success

Ever feel like you're walking on eggshells, trying to avoid mistakes? Well, I'm here to tell you - it's time to start failing forward! This week, we're taking the fear out of failure and showing you how mistakes can propel you towards your goals. We're challenging the conventional wisdom that sees failure as a roadblock, and instead, reframing it as a stepping stone towards growth and learning.

While sharing examples of successful people who've stumbled before they soared, I'll be discussing how our mistakes can be a source of motivation and confidence. We're extending our conversation from the previous episode with Max McMurdo, exploring the transformative power of embracing our failures. Come, be part of this rebellion against the ordinary, and let's learn to fail forward together! You'll discover how to use your so-called 'failures' as fuel on your way to an extraordinary life. Let's ditch the fear of making mistakes and start living the amazing life you truly deserve.

Follow Max - @maxreestore
Marie Forleo with Laura Belgray - watch here
Amie McNee - @inspiredtowrite
Follow Liz Mosely -@lizmmosley
Elizabeth Day - How To Fail

Transcript

Zoe Greenhalf: 0:00

Hello, it's Zoe and welcome or welcome back to the Mischief Movement podcast, your weekly inspo for people looking for more hell yeah in their life. Consider this you're one way to get out of mid-life mediocrity towards fun and positive impact via playful disruption. Wouldn't you love to wake up and feel like a total badass? How about breaking some rules, throwing two fingers up to society and doing more of the things you love? I'm talking full on freedom, adventure and those meaningful connections I know you've been craving. Stop waiting for your amazing life to happen and go get it. I'll be picking the brains of some true game changers and mischief makers so I can share what I find and hopefully inspire you to shake things up, do more of what makes you feel alive and boldly rebel against the ordinary. I have no idea what I'm doing, to be honest, but I've got a mission and I'm here to start a movement. This is going to be quite the adventure. Care to join me? Okay, here goes Hello again. This week you've got me, i know.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:07

I know it's such a come down after last week's fun filled episode with Max, which is an absolute must listen if you haven't tuned in yet. In fact, this episode was inspired by that very conversation because among the many, many topics we covered, he happened to bring up mistake making and it just really got me thinking about this. So he said 90%, if not more, of my designs are nonsense. They do fail and it's okay to make mistakes. So, you know, this got me thinking a lot about how we often frame mistakes as failures, which then go on to really scare us. You know, we build these things up into these huge roadblocks that we must avoid at all costs, but the problem with a fear of failure is that you just end up holding yourself back from ever starting. I know that I have definitely been in this boat, right. So this episode I thought we'd have a little jab at that The fine art of making mistakes, or learning to fail forward, as I've heard it called, and letting go of the idea that if we're high achievers, a mistake means a failure. I come to this episode armed with a thought-provoking quote, a brilliant podcast sorry, no, i mean another brilliant podcast, it's not this one A few shining examples of very successful people who made many mistakes before reaching their goals, and several ways that you can challenge your own ideas about failing or, frankly, fucking things up.

Zoe Greenhalf: 2:49

Let's start with that quote I mentioned because it came up recently on a podcast I deepened it out of by Marie Forleo, and she was interviewing author Laura Belgray about writing her book I think it's called Tough Titties about how much she struggled to get the words on the page and how you know it had been really hard to figure out what she wanted to do with her life at one point and she said this right, you've got to be a bit of a disappointment for a while. Meaning, allow yourself to be a beginner, it's normal. Stop expecting to be the best in the game when you've only just learned how to play. I love that little phrase. It's kind of a different spin on something else that I'd heard by Cathy Heller, who is a massively successful songwriter from the States with many other strings to her bow these days, including her own podcast, and a couple of years back I did an online course with her. It was a lot to do with pressing go on, that dream you'd always thought about pursuing but you haven't kind of had the courage to do yet.

Zoe Greenhalf: 3:53

And she said two things I'll never forget, right? The first is that when you prepare to play bigger, you also need to prepare for the dip. Now, this means you need to be kind of honest with yourself about the fact that whatever it is you want to create whether it's a new career, a change in your relationship, creating an online course, whatever it is it's not going to be plain sailing and you will do things wrong sometimes. So, more than anything, just get ready for those moments and have a bit of a plan in place. How are you going to bounce back when it happens? It might be that you have an accountability partner to bounce new ideas off, a friend or family member who can talk to you when you're finding it hard, or even just like a way to treat yourself. That's going to kind of pick you up and get you back in the ring. I'm thinking, i don't know, a really nice massage after I've fucked up royally would be amazing. But the second thing she said that really struck, that really stuck with me, was give yourself permission to be a C student. And it sounds so basic, doesn't it? But if you're anything like me and you spent your whole life trying to be the best and striving for the A grades and in constant competition with yourself, this is a really different, a new way of thinking. The concept is simple right.

Zoe Greenhalf: 5:23

A students often get so in their own head that unless the thing is perfect, they don't put it out there. C students, on the other hand, do enough to get things moving, knowing it's not the best, but giving themselves the grace to accept that and do it in any way, because, well, progress over perfection, right? So if this is a hard pill for you to swallow, look at it this way. I'll give you an example. Two friends start making their own online course at the same time. One's an A student and is looking for precision, perfection, something she's immensely proud of and that's going to receive all kinds of positive feedback from her peers. C student, however, just wants the thing done. It's not that she doesn't care about the end result, it's just that she's not going to get hung up on all the small stuff. She can always change things around later on, but the important part is getting her course in front of her audience. They both need some photos for their website. So C student moves quickly using whatever resources she's got. So that might mean some decent selfies and a nice shot from her wedding last year, and she uploads them. Good to go. A student can't find one she likes enough, decides to book a photographer to look super professional, forks out for a photo shoot and then procrastinates over a dozen or so images for a week. Meanwhile, c student has already launched her course and backed herself her first sale.

Zoe Greenhalf: 6:57

If you can identify with the A student, can I just say it's not our fault. We've been conditioned from such a young age that we have to do our best and that any less is just unacceptable. So it is really difficult to change that mindset once we become adults. But here's what I've learned from being the A student It's really good for exams, but it's just not that great out in the real world When it's time to move on an idea, to take action and actually test something. It pays to be the C student And if you can get comfortable with this you will see so much more progress as you bring those dreams to life than the poor, high-achieving A student who's still procrastinating over her perfect headshots.

Zoe Greenhalf: 7:50

And in the spirit of mistake-making, i'm going to leave that one in and not edit it out. That's not to say don't have any standards. I'm not saying that at all. You still want people to buy the damn thing at the end. But there's a lot to be said for starting scrappy. I love that phrase start scrappy. I wish I could have embraced this concept many, many years ago and maybe I would be a little bit further along than I am now. There's a lot to be said for starting scrappy, so it might just be a case of recognising those standards and then lowering them at the beginning just to get your idea off the ground, but going back and improving things later on. In any case, i do feel like it's my duty to point out that any failure is also an amazing opportunity If you reframe it, which basically means put a positive spin on it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 8:47

Failure is simply feedback. If you don't make mistakes, how are you ever going to get it right? When you test something, you get data. You can then analyse it. You can analyse what didn't work and why Those experiments are what get you hurtling towards the grandiose end result. It's not glamorous. It's messy, as we've already established, you need to be a bit of a disappointment for a while.

Zoe Greenhalf: 9:17

First, i once heard a talk by Sarah Blakely, who is the founder of women's skin-sucking underwear Spanx. Do you know what she said? Her dad turned failure into a game When her and her brother were kids. He would ask them each week what they'd failed at. It was a silly game with only one way to lose Not trying to think new and therefore not managed to fail at something. What a genius man. He managed to raise his kids believing that failing was so normal, nothing to be ashamed of and only actually significant in the context of having put yourself out there to try something new. I mean, it must have been one hell of a school to be offering all this stuff she could fail at so regularly, but still I love the idea that even before adulthood, the real meaning of failure had already been instilled in her. So when it came to trying things for her business, she'd already removed the fear factor and therefore a potentially big obstacle to her future career.

Zoe Greenhalf: 10:27

I don't know about you, but I always find it so refreshing when other people are open and honest about their mistakes or failures, not because I revel in their discomfort, but because, at the end of the day, we're all human and mistakes are just a part of life. Let's begin to see them, talk about them, acknowledge them and normalise them. It's so easy to overlook this when we scroll through social media, which is why, recently, a post on Instagram by an account called @Inspired to Write really caught my attention. It was an honest account by Amy McNee of her failures in becoming a writer. So this is just an excerpt from the post called A List of my Failures I Have Experienced on My Creative Journey 1.

Zoe Greenhalf: 11:21

Literally hundreds of rejections from publishing houses. 2. Still not a single yes from a publisher. 3. My first workshop had three people and we ran it at a significant loss. 4. I pay thousands to record my audiobooks even though they don't make a profit not even close. 5. I had to shut down my Patreon because it was so exhausting and made me 20 bucks a month. 6. The first season of the podcast got a very small handful of listeners I'd love to know how many, but never mind. And number 7. I racked up tens of thousands of dollars of debt while trying to write my novel and waitress. My parents had to help me with my rent and I felt like a failed adult.

Zoe Greenhalf: 12:12

But she also says none of these failures were full stops, none of these failures were terminal. These failures were my teachers, my lessons, my stepping stones to triumph. Do you know how powerful I feel? because I know I can handle failure. Oh my god, i am unstoppable. I get goosebumps as I read that, because I really feel it. I love hearing that take on it, this idea that failures are our stepping stones to triumph. I find that really powerful. Failing builds resilience, and resilience is cultivated by putting yourself out there, by having a go, by making yourself available for rejection and brushing it aside if it does come. And on the subject of rejection, i've been following along with Liz Mosley's 100 Rejection Challenge these past few months.

Zoe Greenhalf: 13:16

Liz is a graphic designer who specializes in branding for small businesses and host of the Building Your Brand podcast. This year she set herself a challenge to rewrite the narrative by getting rejected 100 times. The aim, of course, wasn't about the sufferance of being rejected, but was actually in making herself write those pictures, get visible, ask for what she wanted, you know, get more comfortable with receiving the nose which, can I just add, might very well be a not yet, not necessarily a full out, no, they could just be a not yet, and this also makes them feel a lot easier to handle, right? I actually got in touch with Liz and I told her about some of the little sayings that I use when I experience rejection, and the first one was rejection is just redirection. Rejection is a gift that creates a shift, rejection is a prize in disguise. And the last one, rejection, is a sign that this one is not aligned. And if any of those make you feel better about being rejected, then feel free to take them, print them out, stick them on your wall and use them.

Zoe Greenhalf: 14:37

Finally, this episode wouldn't be complete without mentioning the brilliant Elizabeth Day journalist, author of bestselling book How to Fail and host of the podcast of the same name. She positively celebrates the things that haven't gone right and interviews guests on what failures have taught them about how to succeed better. It's so refreshing, because how often do we really look at where people's stories went wrong? If you're keen to jump in and have a listen, i can highly recommend season 17, episode 2, where she interviews Jay Shetty. I have a lot of love for this man because he always has so much wisdom to share And I don't want to spoil your chance to listen.

Zoe Greenhalf: 15:23

But one thing he said really struck a chord. His attitude towards failure is that you just learn that it's unavoidable. It's not a sign of inadequacy, but an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to pivot or, potentially, a chance to say maybe this is just not my path. It's also not a reflection of your worth or self-esteem Such an important point to underline here. Right, that brings us to the end of this mini episode, this mini-sode about making mistakes and failing forward.

Zoe Greenhalf: 16:06

I hope I've given you something new to think about when it comes to how you deal with failure or your fear of failure as you continue to rebel against the ordinary and choose a life you don't want to escape from. Remember what Amy said it's powerful to be able to own our failures, and you, my mistake-making friend, are not a failure. You are absolutely unstoppable. Keep making mistakes, and I'll be back next week with another inspiring guest to help you think differently and get you doing more of the things that make you feel alive. Oh, my goodness, you made it to the end. If you deserve a friggin' medal for that. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. I'd love to hear what you think, so let's connect either on Instagram, at mischiefandhide, or by signing up to my newsletter at zoegreenhalfcom. If you did enjoy this podcast, please consider telling a friend or leaving me a review wherever you download your episodes, which will help my mission to inspire and empower more people like you to choose mischief over mediocre. Ciao.