and life you love, and this is Q&A Tuesday. Now, today’s question comes from Nina and

she writes, “Hi Marie, I’m an Art Studies graduate from Germany and I recently stumbled

over your videos and I love them. You helped me find the motivation to finish my bachelor

thesis and get excited about the start of a new phase in my life. Now, I have a question.

I actually had to repeat writing the thesis since I failed in the first attempt. That

was one of the worst failures in my life so far, but I managed to get through it and write

a new one within 2 months. I recently handed it in, but I’m left with a lot of insecurity

about my abilities and my knowledge. How can I overcome such a devastating failure like

that and regain my confidence? Thank you so much, love Nina.” Now, Nina, that this is

an incredible question and to answer it today I’m having back one of our favorite guests

of all time, Doctor Cathy Collautt. Cathy, thank you so much for coming back to MarieTV.

So happy to be here.

Ok, so I’m excited to dig into this with you, but before we do just for everybody out

there, I know failure is one of those words, right? People can take a lot of issue with

it and debate about it. There’s no such thing as failure, there’s only experiences

or results. We’re not going to get into the debate about that, we just wanna help

people when you feel like something really bad has happened and you really don't have

any confidence and you wanna get back out there in the game. And then the second thing

we wanna say is nothing we’re gonna share today is about not giving yourself time to

lick your wound, you know, when you have a failure, yeah, and you need some time to grieve.

So all of this is when you’re ready to get back in the game, how to do it in a really

healthy way.

Yeah.

So you have 4 steps that we can help ourselves with. What’s step number one?

So step number one is to realize that Nina’s is a very important question because the truth

is you must. You must learn to deal with setbacks, failures, and devastating failure, you must

learn to deal with blows to your confidence, you must learn to overcome because they are

going to happen. The chance of you making it through life without setbacks and failures

is, what? Nil? Especially if you’re gonna try new things and to be new things and especially

if you’re gonna live a life worth living. So step number one is to recognize that the

question how can I overcome failure and regain confidence is not about possibility as in

how is it possible for me to, but about necessity. I have to find a way to deal with setbacks

and failures even, and perhaps especially, devastating failure and to regain confidence

when I lose it. I have to find a way to overcome. It must be possible, because they are going

to happen. As you always say, Marie, it’s a non negotiable.

Yes, it really is a non negotiable and I love this idea of you have to make it a must. That’s

it.

Right.

There’s no other possibility.

That’s step number one, make it a must. If you’re gonna live a life worth living

you will see setbacks, so make it a must to learn to deal with them.

Awesome.

On to step two. You will see setbacks and failures because success and failure are not

two separate roads like you would meet at a crossroads, for example. Success and failure

are on the same road. Just picture success as farther down that road. So step two is

recognizing that success and failure are on the same path. Think about it. Always before

you can do something there’s a period of time in which you cannot or have not yet proven

that you can do this thing.

Yes.

Always you can’t do it first. In fact, up until that third or 30th or 300th time when

you succeed, every prior attempt is to some extent a setback or a failure. This means

that successful people actually fail just as often, if not more than their unsuccessful

counterparts. You’ve probably heard some version of the saying that the most important

difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful ones never interpret

failure as the last word on the subject. That is worth repeating. The most important difference

between successful and unsuccessful people is the way they respond to failure and to

losing. So your action step here is to relax about it. Leave off drawing conclusions about

your character, your worth, and/or your entire existence because you’ve seen failures.

You will see failures. You’re supposed to see failures, otherwise you’re probably

not, as in pretty definitely not, giving… really trying. And by that I mean giving enough

of yourself to your life.

Right. You’re probably playing it safe.

Yes.

You’re not taking any kind of risks whatsoever.

Right.

You’ve probably been sitting on the couch.

Right. Doing the same thing over and over.

Absolutely.

Next, step 3. Celebrate the effort, not the result. To begin to regain confidence, you

want to applaud yourself for trying. Remember you had two options: try or not try. Genuinely

applaud yourself for putting yourself out there and for trying. Your applause should

be equal to your earnestness, how much of yourself you really gave, and the raw effort

you made, and not in proportion to your perceived success or lack thereof. So your action step

here is to applaud yourself to the extent that you got in the ring instead of sitting

on the sideline.

That’s important. I mean, for so many people, especially I think in our world, you know,

the online world for me at least. I see so many, like, armchair quarterbacks and people

that are, oh you should do this, you should do that. And I’m like are you really in

there getting anything done? Where I love this idea of celebrating ourselves really

for making the effort and I love that distinction to the degree that we actually made the effort.

So if you’re, like, half assing it…

The applause is less.

...you’re gonna do a golf clap.

Exactly.

Right?

Right. And like I say, you wanna genuinely applaud yourself. It’s not like it’s some

consolation prize because it isn’t. You wanna be giving yourself props for doing the

most important thing and the thing over which you actually have control, which is putting

yourself out there and really trying.

I think that’s another important distinction, you know, because in so many areas of our

lives we can’t control the outcome, you know, whether it’s a business negotiation

or you’re pitching something. You really can’t manipulate, nor would we necessarily

want to. But you’re right, the only thing that we can have any sort of control over

is how we show up and to the effort that we do.

Exactly.

Beautiful.

Which is why I would say even when you win, you wanna celebrate the effort and enjoy the

result.

Yes.

Right?

Yes. So step number 4 is actually one of my favorites, all about confining our conclusions.

What does that mean?

You don't wanna let this specific failure become global about you, your life, your abilities.

You wanna confine your conclusions and your shame to this iteration, to this try, to this

specific experiment, to this particular manifestation of your effort, to this try or, as I call

it, the iteration. I can relate to Nina failing her first thesis attempt because so did I.

I failed my PhD the first time and I know exactly why I did and it had nothing to do

with my knowledge or my abilities, evidently as I also rewrote it in a matter of a month

or two and passed. But even if I did fail a second time, would that mean I was incapable?

Whether I am or not is still undetermined at the end of a failure because success, if

it does exist, exists farther down that same road. But fine. Say I wasn’t capable. The

question is, incapable of or inept at what exactly? Watch the tendency to draw increasingly

global conclusions as the result of a specific failure. So do I question my ability to write

a passable thesis on this particular topic or in this particular field or in academia

in general? Do I go on to question my ability to read or write or think at all? What about

my ability to make good decisions and to follow through and handle my life in general? Are

all these things being brought into question?

Usually I think. Right?

Right? And the more you generalize and abstract your conclusion from this specific iteration

or expression of your effort, the more you inflate its failure to cover ever increasing

aspects of yourself and your life and the harder it will be for you to do two things:

learn from it and try again. So your action step here is to confine your conclusions and,

as I say, your shame to the iteration. Don't by rote spin off into an abyss of lifelong

character judgments, nor even necessarily what a lost cause you are at this. Relegating

your conclusions to the effort rather than to your essential nature is definitely a healthier

if not more correct way to engage with the game of life.

I love it. I mean, I think it’s so easy for any of us when we experience the tiniest

failure, again, it just balloons up and it does become global so fast and I think that

this last piece is where people get really, really tripped up because they start assigning

it and looking through that lens on every level. And of course you can feel crippled

at that point.

Sure.

Of course it would be hard. So I love that. It’s a very conscious way to go… bring

it down.

And it’s much harder to change your behavior if it’s attributed to your essential nature

as opposed to the one effort. I can do something different next time as opposed to of course

I can’t do anything different, I’m just incapable of or I’m inept or, you know,

I’m really bad at.

Cathy, this was awesome. So let’s review.

So life, as they say, is the successive unfolding of success from failure inasmuch as every

attempt proceeding success will invariably be to some extent a failure or a setback.

Life really lived is comprised of these iterations. Just redress your understanding, your definition

of a failure. A failure is a try that didn't work. These are your options: regret trying

or applaud yourself for trying. Let this failure give you reason enough to sit down and step

out of the ring indefinitely or learn from it in order to improve the next try, the next

iteration. Don't pretend that sitting on the sidelines is the responsible and rational

and objective thing to do. Try instead in the name of logic and reason to contain the

result to the effort. Just because you didn't yet does not mean you can’t. It may mean

you won’t, but that is still entirely unknown and totally up to you.

Beautiful. Cathy, thank you so much for being here today.

My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me back.

Now Cathy and I would love to hear from you. Have you ever overcome a devastating failure

or maybe you know someone else who has? What were the steps that helped you? We would love

to hear about it in the comments below. Now, as always, the best discussions happen after

the episode over at MarieForleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now. Did you like

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