Desire to fail more in order to succeed more.

"Our past is the canvas upon which our future masterpiece is painted."

Without failure, regrets, dissatisfaction, rejection, mistakes, problems, and negative experiences we wouldn't grow as a person. We wouldn't have success, satisfaction, acceptance, solutions, and positive experiences.

The more you grow as a person, the better you'll be prepared to seize future opportunities. Various circumstances that causes anxiety, fear, and pressure are made not to matter as much by experiencing them more. Repeated courage to face these circumstances that you are incompetent and insecure with leads to competence. Repeated competence leads to confidence. Repeated confidence leads to more courage to face more things that are outside your comfort zone.

It's all about paying your dues. Sure, you can bypass all that work by getting lucky with positive experiences, but without that growth you won't be able to handle when the tough times come and the opportunities where you aren't as lucky.

People hesitate and procrastinate because of perfectionism. They think that they shouldn't have to go through all this growth. They think they should start off fearless, competent, and confident before even trying anything beyond their comfort zone or experience. They want guarantees before even attempting anything, but life doesn't work that way. There's no guarantees in reality. Everything that's worth doing might not work. Not everyone will be interested in you.

These perfectionists / procrastinators eventually escape reality all together because what's the point in trying if there's no guarantee? Games / tv / film / music / drugs / alcohol / prostitutes / porn / etc... all these have guarantees of easy and certain instant gratification without having to go through all that work to grow as a person for the purpose of attaining difficult, scary, and uncertain delayed gratification.

People have been so accustomed to instant gratification to the point of being idle, comfortable, content, zoned out, and numb. It's become a high that they need to continue feeding. It becomes a spoiled entitlement that they believe that they should always feel good. Then things happen in reality that they can no longer neglect or escape from and they aren't able to deal with it.

Failure, regrets, dissatisfaction, rejection, mistakes, problems, and negative experiences aren't bad things that need to be avoided. They're a part of life that makes you feel alive just as much as their positive counterparts. That duality / opposition / variance / dichotomy is what makes life interesting. To take away one side is to take away life itself. That's why instant gratification escapism feels so empty and disconnected despite the amount of pleasure and comfort it brings.

Fail, experience, and grow as much as possible during your day. Make it a way of life. Make it the 95% of what makes up your life. So that one day when that 5% important opportunity comes your way, the fear / pain / pressure / anxiety of those circumstances are made not to matter as much and you can give it your all as a better version of yourself from the last time you failed.

Personally, I've conditioned myself over the years to feel uncomfortable if I'm not failing and growing with something. It took a long time because for most of my life I conditioned myself to seek comfortable, certain, and easy instant gratification escapism that I always sought to keep that high going. The question shouldn't be "what did you succeed at today?" The better question is "what did you attempt to do today beyond your comfort zone that might not work?"

The more risks you take, the more you'll fail, but also the more you'll succeed.

The less risks you take, the less you'll fail, but also the less you'll succeed.

Truly successful people don’t merely tolerate discomfort. They embrace it and seek it out again and again. It's a wantingness to fail and make mistakes in order to grow. Rather than trying to seek completion and perfection so that you can be at peace or comfort (like with porn).

Make growth a way of life and success will become a natural consequence of the person that you've become. Just from the quantity of risks you're willing to take and your continuous growth, you naturally become "lucky" with the opportunities that come your way. Rather than desperately chasing success.

Pay your dues.

 

Confidence isn't being fearless or deluding yourself to believing that you don't lack anything.

Confidence to me is believing that no matter what happens, I can handle it. Whether that's failure, rejection, or an adversity that I've never faced before... I'll learn to handle it. I might fuck it up, but I'll eventually become a person that can handle it in the future. Confidence is willing to take risks despite there being no guarantees and that you don't know what the hell you're doing.

I don't like "fake it until you make it" either. I prefer accepting where you currently are and everything that you currently lack, but you're working towards. Don't feel as though you lack nothing and delude yourself into believing you already possess everything you could ever dream. The solution is to simply become comfortable with what you potentially lack.

People who are confident in business are confident because they’re comfortable with failure. People who are confident in their social lives are confident because they’re comfortable with rejection. People who are confident in their relationships are confident because they’re comfortable with getting hurt. The truth is that the route to the positive runs through the negative. Those among us who are the most comfortable with negative experiences are those who reap the most benefits.

Comfort in our failures allows us to act without fear, to engage without judgment, to love without conditions.

Yup, she might not like me. Yup, I might look like a fool trying to develop this new skill. Yup, I might fall on my face attempting to go for what I want. Yup, my ego might take a big hit and I'll feel sad for a while... but wasn't it fun? Didn't you learn a lot? Didn't you feel alive in the face of this uncertainty? Aren't you excited to grow from this experience? That child in you mischievously, curiously, and playfully asks "want to do it again?"