If You Feel Like A Failure Right Now, Read This

(Photo by Ales Maze on Unsplash)

• Do you define yourself as a success or a failure?
• Do you think your intelligence or capabilities are
  fixed or flexible?
  
  If like me, you too tend to define yourself in terms
  of fixed parameters, then you need to read the book “Mindset” by Carol Dweck.
  
  Carol says we operate from a fixed or a growth
  mindset.
• People with fixed mindsets are comfortable only when they succeed or when things go well for them.
• People with growth mindsets tend not to be defined by their successes or failures. They think of challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. When faced with new and hard things, they don’t tend to let their setbacks hold them back.
  
  This was an important lesson for me and it might be for you, too.
  
  As a new freelance writer and solopreneur, I was letting my setbacks define me. I would look at the more established and talented writers and feel intimidated, scared, and hopeless.
  
  No matter what I did, how much I learned and grew, NOTHING I did felt GOOD ENOUGH.
  
  As someone who’d had a relatively easy time in academics and the corporate world, I was not used to the discomfort of rejections.
  
  It was difficult having to prove my abilities in every pitch I sent out and not let the lack of responses discourage me.
  
  I have an entirely new perspective thanks to this book.
  
  I am not a failure. I am learning and becoming a better writer and businesswoman than I was yesterday.
  
  I wanted to remind you of the same.
  
  - Trying new things take courage. It won’t be easy.
  
  - But your mindset will define whether you are in for the long haul.
  
  If you change your perspective, you never fail.

You face challenges and learn how to navigate them.

When you’re learning, you’re growing.

“There was a saying in the 1960s that went: ‘Becoming is better than being.’ The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.”
˜Carol Dweck