Imagine this: You are an intermediate surfer who goes surfing on a day where the waves are actually a bit too big for you, but you go out anyway! Because hey, how do we learn if we do not push the comfort zone a little?
You are surviving, going for it, but not really thriving. After 40 minutes of paddling for your life & getting swallowed a couple of times, you put your shit together and you tell yourself, "I can do this".
The next gigantic wave comes and instead of backing off, you go for it and… you GOT it! It is beautiful and long and gorgeous. You are so stoked and happy. I just got the biggest wave of my life!
One day, you open your phone and see an Instagram message: IndoSurflines invited you to collaborate on a post.
You become excited, maybe he filmed that big wave I got! Imagine all the people who will look up to me and will think, wow she is a good surfer, she is so cool, can I be her friend? You open the post expecting to be overloaded by congratulations, likes and comments, but to your horror, it is the opposite.
Reading through the comments there are no: Amazing! Or Cool!! Or (flame emoticon), but only "shit..", "she should not be out there with that level", "(laugh emoticon)".
...
Instead of that big wave, there is a whole video of all your fails. Not once not twice, but on repeat, slow motion and zoomed in on that wave eating you alive.
Now there are two ways you could respond to that:
1. Laugh about it, know that failing is part of the learning curve and still be proud about that amazing wave you caught. Fuck them, you know better and you are proud you went out that day = the desired response.
How it actually went in my brain: No! What are they all thinking of me? Maybe I should not have gone out that day. Was I in the way of other people? People will see me next time and think, oh that is her, the girl who tries so hard but cannot surf at all. [panic], maybe I should stop surfing and trying. You see, that little voice inside was right, you are not good enough and you should just disappear.
It took me 3 days, 2 cries, 5 meditations and one really important piece in a book that I was reading (really this saved my ass), to go from bone deep embarrassment to laugh about it.
It basically told me directly (not really but felt like it) that people with a perfectionist mind are avoiding failure, being scared about the reactions of others, will blame others for their failure and essentially turning failure into defeat. This in turn will keep you from growing, exploring and reaching success. It keeps you exactly where you are.
On a deeper level, this reaction comes from some place inside where you yourself believe X Y Z is true. And the failure is a confirmation and this makes you feel way more embarrassed, bad and ashamed than the situation is actually worth. When you go with this train of thoughts, you will think yourself small and again keep yourself from growing.
However, imagine you can react like outcome 1. You look at the mistakes you made, own them, and think, great! Now I know what I can do better! You got not only your ticket to success, but also to growth, joy, play and most importantly, to becoming that amazing surfer that you believe you can be because no small stupid video on Instagram will hold you back.
It finally clicked, this is how I have been treating my failures. I get emotional and I try to hide, instead of looking at them, laughing about it and learning!
Next time I will still go out, will still eat shit, and will probably still fall the same number of times. But I will not be defeated.
So thank you IndoSurflines for posting this fail video of me. It might have taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.
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