Failure

I posted today on Instagram : "I Failed" are not bad words...and gave my reason why.  It is funny, there are people who respond to me through the comments there, and there are people who email or text me (obviously they know me a little bit in real life.)

One of the comments that was posted on Instagram actually mirrored, pretty much word for word, one that I got privately. "It depends where I fail..."  So my question to you, and I really would like to know the answer is "Why?" 

Why are we so hard on ourselves that the moment we don't "get something perfectly" the first time we are a "failure"...not what we did, mind you, but us as people?  Where did that start and how do we stop it?

One of the uplifting comments I got from someone I coach was that she wasn't afraid to tell me when she hadn't hit her goals for the week because instead of agreeing with her gut reaction of "I failed, I am a failure", I help her understand that the things she didn't achieve this week can be achieved next and that sometimes we need to look at why we failed.*  Was the goal reasonable in the first place? Did a factor you hadn't accounted for prevent you from reaching that goal?

I have yet to coach someone who failed at a goal because they didn't try and I have yet to coach something through viewing that failure as an opportunity, who hadn't already done a seriously good job of beating themselves up over the failure.  Creative types especially seem prone to this, our work is never "good enough" for ourselves and all it takes is one little affirmation of that to start the never ending cycle of "it wasn't good enough, I wasn't good enough, so I shouldn't try so hard because it isn't good enough and I am not good enough..."

Challenge for you, if you are creative....Just once today, or this week, tell yourself that your work was good enough!  And if you need a second opinion leave me a link to something you have done so I can tell you what I see!  :)

Which brings us to my failure for the week.....

You might notice that there was not a WIP Wednesday Post.  I wrote the post, but I hadn't uploaded the photos from my camera, so I saved it as a draft and....got distracted and never came back to it!

A controllable failure, yes!  Absolutely.  I closed the browser window I post from and went on to doing other things.  Does it make me a bad person?  Well, not really.  Did I beat myself up for it?  You better believe it!  Which is why I posted to Instagram what I did!

On a less preachy note.....

I held a quick vote on Instagram about what colors would cheer up a dreary, cloudy, grey winter.  Green won and the pattern that I wrote using some "every so spring like" green yarn will be going live on Ravelry next week!

Teaser photo:

If you subscribed to my newsletter you have already seen the finished object in one view, follow me on Instagram and there will be more!

One of the test knitters used a gradient that is to die for and when she was finished her husband commented that he thought it was his favorite thing of all the things she had knitted!

~M








*Ok, if you failed because you didn't try that is a whole different conversation!  But, in this case that wasn't the reason for failure

Goals or Dreams and Wishes?

Tried going to the gym lately?

Everyone I know who has a gym membership that they use all year hates going to the gym in January.  No parking, no available equipment and some of my friends over the years have resorted to buying their own weights and treadmills just to use the first few weeks of the year, and then they go back to going to the gym in February and March.

New Year's Resolutions for so many are not actual goals to change something so much as a dream or a wish that something in their lives is different.

Why is that?  And is it true for you?

I have some theories, backed up by observation but not necessarily any personal research studies.

One of my theories is that instead of setting a measurable goal, people set themselves up with dreams.

I want to lose weight, be more active, eat healthy, get rich.  But there is never a measurable feature to it or a deadline or it is totally unreasonable to start with.  And sometimes, success is not defined so people might actually achieve their goal and never know it!

Goals are like a destination, in my opinion.  You tell yourself the destination and you find it on whichever page of the map it happens to be on, but then, if you are going to take that road trip you have to pick a path, but be ready for the inevitable road construction, bad weather and flat tires along the way.

You also, depending on the length of the journey, might need to account for rest stops, or overnights at motels/hotels, meals and fuel stops.  All the planning can seem overwhelming but is very necessary to actually getting to where you were planning on going.

If you make the destination too vague and don't set deadlines you will never get there.  I am "going to get rich someday" is too open ended and "I will make ten million dollars by next Friday" is not reasonable.  But how do you know when the goal is just right?

Sometimes it helps to have a friend, or a coach, walk you through it.  But ultimately it is up to you what you can fit into your day, how much your goal means to you and how stubborn you can be about reaching it.

You might wonder why I would bring this up on a knitting blog.  Well....

For the past few months, I have been doing a lot of "five minute" coaching with designers, yarn dyers, a potter and a couple of tech editors, to help them figure out what their dreams and goals really are and in some cases what the differences between goals and dreams are.  For a couple it turned into more than a quick five minute review of an annual goal or check in at the mid year period and it turned into a weekly conversation.

One of the things I discovered about myself during those conversations is that really is one of my passions.  Being the person who asked the next question and made someone else think, plan and ultimately be successful at making their dream a goal and then a reality is so rewarding!

So my call to action for you is to think about if you have goals or dreams.  If you have dreams how do you redefine them to become goals?  If you have goals and are a designer on Ravelry have you posted them on Budding Designers so I can give you a five minute review?  If you like what you see there, pm me, we can talk about your unique situation and dreams. (If you are not a designer and still have goals or dreams still feel free to pm me, or subscribe to my newsletter and hit reply when the first one comes to you, I answer all emails!  We can talk, really talk, about what it takes for you to be successful and turn those dreams into reality!)

Some people grow out of their dreams, but I like to believe with a little help, everyone can grow into them!

~M