Joy In The Moment

Fail Up for Peace of Mind

By Joy Pape

I like to read or listen to inspirational words to start my day. Today I listened to Oprah Winfrey’s, The Path Made Clear. She talked about how when climbing a mountain, there are valleys on the way. She used the words “Fail Up”

Failing Up in this case means to learn from what seems to be your failures and turn them into lessons you learn on the way to make things better and gain peace of mind.

Rather than giving in to what you think are failures and stop your journey, keep your eye on the goal and turn these into opportunities to change and make things better. Keep moving up that mountain to be your best self rather than fall down and stay in the valleys. Use these lessons as stepping stones. I also call these ‘failures’ second chances.

In life, most of us get second chances.

As a student, you may have taken an exam and failed but had the opportunity to take it over again. You learned from failing, studied, retook the exam, passed, and felt good about it.

You may have had a relationship that failed. Rather than blaming the other person, you looked inside to see what you could have done differently, and you do so now. You bring what you learned into another relationship, making it a more successful and lasting relationship.

Learn from and Fail Up from these ‘valleys’ if your goal is peace of mind.

The past is not now. Don’t dwell on what seem like failures, but rather let them be reminders of how you’ve become stronger from difficult times in your life and be thankful you have the opportunity to do things over again in a more positive way.

The future is not now. The fear of something that might happen in the future may never come to pass. Fear robs us of our energy (peace of mind) now.

The elation of anticipation of something good may feel good at the moment, but remember, it too is the future and may never come to pass. It can set us up to let us down and rob us of our energy (peace of mind) if it doesn’t come to pass. This doesn’t mean don’t hope for better in the future. It means work for what you hope for and enjoy the climb NOW in the moment.

As the saying goes, “Change your thoughts and change your life.” This you can do now. Doing so can give you some joy, peace, and comfort now, in this moment.