The Art of Failure & and How It Can Uplevel Your Life

Hello Thrivers!

August has me doing the annual doctors: pap, mammogram, shingles vaccines. (We had two vibrant young women in our extended family die of cancer. Just 38 and 43. So I try to remind myself how incredibly lucky I am to be annoyed by visiting the doctors.)

These pearls are good, I hope you agree.

Pearl One

Crazy week, but in its own way exceptional too.

Take a look.

Before I begin: I swear I was not in demanding princess-mode.

Long story, short: I needed a head-shot – in my life, photos were shot at home, nothing fancy – so I set an appointment with an experienced photographer who’d (according to his gorgeous website) been shooting head-shots for many years.

A million things went wrong that day – some me, some not me — but everything was made worse by the make-up artist’s work. The photographer was insistent that I have my professional make up done. (He comes from the actors’ world and seems to assume regular people can’t do makeup for photos.)

Anyhoo, one makeup artist later and I’d bloomed into full clown. My super supportive son got up off the couch – we were at the photographer’s studio — took one look at my face and quietly sat back down. At that I went to the bathroom’s mirror and omg.

It was bad. I mean bad/bad. I was all eyebrows.

Two gigantic caterpillars sitting on my face.

I wiped off as much as I could. I asked the make-up person to at least take off the fake eyelashes which she did. (Right before she bolted.)

And then we started the shoot. The photographer didn’t do one thing to help my mood. There was no music, nothing funny to laugh at, no beautiful photo on the wall, just nothing. And yet he kept clicking the camera. I tried to think of something funny, but by the time I’d thought of something to make myself laugh, he’d already taken three or four more shots. So the photos were of stressed out me, with Halloween-like make-up.  

All to say, I’m buying a ring light and taking selfies from now on. (Adding: I’ve known professional photographers who are awesome. My entire situation was a one-off.)

But here’s the thing: At the photographer’s studio, I realized that the photo was a fail. (I haven’t told you the whole boring story. The make-up artist was one hacking cough amid a million hiccups that day.)

Riding down the elevator my “looking-for-the-lesson” habit – one that I’d practiced over the last two decades – kicked in with no prodding from me.

Driving home, I turned the entire situation over in my mind, looking at every facet. I wanted to figure out the parts of which I had control. I began asking myself, Exactly what happened here? How can I do it better next time? What did I miss? How was I snookered? Had I been overeager with his beautiful website? (Yes.) When he wasn’t communicating with me at all prior to the shoot, did I allow the little red flags alert me to a potential problem? (No.)

I backed the timeline up. I kept asking myself over and over: what could I have done differently? How could I have influenced the experience for a successful outcome? What can I learn?

I didn’t ask myself these questions in a mean or cruel way. And I absolutely wasn’t trying to find the person to hang the blame on. I only wanted to learn from the situation.

I was smack in the middle of a massive failure, and I was doing a deep-dive trying to assess what role I’d played in this little drama.

We all fail here and there. In big and small ways. It’s how we respond to the so-called fail. Realizing that the head shot was in free-fall, I wanted to get something out of this situation. No, I wouldn’t have an amazing photo, but I would become a better version of myself if I had anything to say about it.

I continued with the questions: How could I have made this better from the get-go? Why did I ignore the meadow of tiny red flags?

And the gems spilled forth.

I’m not kidding, I learned so much about how I engage with the world. I didn’t only learn lessons for an (unlikely) photo shoot to come, but I did learn lessons that I could apply to my daily life right now.

I continued with the questions like how do I handle being assertive? How am I making myself insignificant while making the photographer and make-up artist too important?

The Art of Recovering from an Overeat

So, back to our topic. You attacked the kitchen and ate the leftover cheesecake? And then the box of Ding Dongs?

And last week you went out with a friend and ate half the pizza and downed two beers? And had ice cream when you got home? And everything went south from there?

Honestly, this is how I would proceed. First I’d tell myself to chill; that I was in failure-recovery mode and something awesome would come out of this.

I’d remind myself that the best lessons can come from any situation but especially the fails. Then I’d pull out my journal and answer these questions:

• An overview: what has happened over the last week for me? The last month?
• What has me so worried? So scared? So mad? So very sad?  (If you’re feeling like, drrr, my best friend had a heart attack. Okay, then write about the worry and how the worry is affecting you.)
• Still asking yourself: At what point, did I stop “having my own back?”
• What does “having my own back even mean to me (in various situations)?”
• What was going on in my life before I stepped off the smart eating path and lunged for the cheesecake?
• How do I interrupt overeating?
• What happened in my day, my week, my month that led me to the calories?
• What red flags did I miss before I Cookie Monster’d the kitchen?
• How do I support myself when I’m having the aforementioned feelings?

I’ll tell you something funny: as a travel writer I often embraced it when part of the trip fell off the cliff. It gave me something interesting to write about.

Same here. “Failures” are awesome because it gives us new info into who we are and how we can evolve into better versions of ourselves.

The next time everything tanks start looking at the many facets of the “fail.” What is the “fail” trying to tell you?

This “fail” could be just one of many diamonds that transforms your life. ♥

Pearl Two

As I’ve mentioned, the diet-industry has sold us on the idea that “losing ten is easy.” That said, I’ve also noticed how prevalent the word “easy” is in our world.

You could make an argument that life can be brutal, and learning or doing something easily would be a welcome diversion.

I get it, but. . . things that really matter aren’t easy. Nothing about raising kids – or a puppy!! – is easy, but they’re the most precious creatures on earth to us.

Very little about travel is easy, but our treks matter so very much to us. And we love sharing our trip memories later.

Losing weight especially after menopause? Nothing easy about it.

We always need to remind ourselves: it’s hard, apparently it’s supposed to be hard, but we can do hard things.

We’re totally up for the challenge. ♥

Pearl Three

In August, Pearl Three is about habit formation and today, specifically: my habit of “forgetting.”

“Forgetting” is one of my most favorite excuses when I’m dorking around, and not getting down to business.

Say I skip a workout, I automatically assuage my guilt by thinking, “Well, I just forgot.” Nifty. Forgetting has gotten me out of all kinds of stuff I didn’t feel like doing such as going to the bank, cleaning the bathroom, writing a chapter.

Of course, I calendar everything like doctor appointments; an article’s due date; or the next kayaking get-together.

So then the question becomes: do I just need to better calendar my personal goals?

I have a bike ride plan with a group later in August and I need to do 20 minutes a day on my inside-bike. I’m afraid that writing “biking” into my calendar will cause me to “forget” to read my calendar.

But this is the moment to create teeny-weenie habit-cues for myself according to James Clear in his amazing book, Atomic Habits.

My cues for riding indoors: cute workout clothes laid out on bed and leave phone on bed too (so I can watch a show while I ride).

Keep notes on the length of the ride, the difficulty levels, and improvement I’m making. (Tracking is huge to embedding a habit.)

But next time I “just forget?” I’ll tell myself, no ma’am that is a cop-out. These days my “I forgot” is my cue to sit down and journal about my “why.” Why do I want to ride my indoor bike? Why is it so important to me? And then time to revisit the calendar to put my “why” into action. ♥

Pearl Four

Food!* Yes, I know. We’re nowhere near the holidays and I’m writing about sweet potatoes. But hang with me, this will make sense in a moment.

Did you know that you can nuke one sweet potato and get four grams of fiber, 0.5 grams of fat, and billions of vitamins? (That is, unless you have kidney troubles, then steer clear, but you likely already knew that.)

It’s a fun tiny meal — because it’s somewhat sweet — and makes one feel virtuous all at the same time (as in, make sure to eat the sweet potato in front of others so you can quietly humble-gloat about how cool your food choices are. Win-win!!)

Here’s the easy how-to:

Wash one sweet potato.

Stick it with a knife or fork four times (to allow steam to escape).

Put on plate, plunk in microwave.

Nuke for 2.5 minutes. Turn, then nuke another 2.5 minutes.

Cut it open. Drop three to six mini-marshmallows on top.

Nuke for ten seconds.

Eat it like you would a baked potato or mash it.

Very-yum.

*Always keep in mind that I’m not a doctor, I’m a lost-55-pounder. I’m sharing how I eat and think on a daily basis. If you don’t like your GP, shop around. You are that important. Talk with her about your health. ♥

Pearl Five

When it hurts: observe. Life is trying to teach you something.” — Anita Krizzan ♥

Have a wonderful August weekend, Thrivers!

♥, Wendy

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