Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 431 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! What’s going on?? Are you guys out there living a big life? Are you trying new things? Things that make you scared? I hope so….that’s what we were meant to do…why else would we have a desire for more every time we reach a goal? It’s because we were absolutely designed to live life to the fullest and when we don’t, we feel tired, bored and yeah sometimes a bit depressed. That’s why it’s so important that we never stop living.
My big sister found that that’s the only way to move forward after the death of her husband, is to keep living even when it’s uncomfortable. So she’s been learning to make pottery. She has a pottery wheel, she even has this huge kiln that we found on etsy. She started out trying on her own on the wheel but it’s not quite as easy as some people make it look, so I suggested she come to Memphis for a class to learn and so we found one, she was nervous to do it alone, she had a stroke years ago and still has issues from that but she did it anyway and she ended up loving the class. She learned some valuable things in that class but once she got back home to her own pottery wheel, the clay was still flying and she just couldn’t get it to work the way she wanted it to, it was so uncomfortable to use it, so she ended up pushing it aside and went back to hand making pottery which is lovely and in her comfort zone, but not what she ultimately knows she wants or needs to do if she is going to make a little business out of it.
So we decide she is going to take another class, another beginners class because she hasn’t been practicing on the wheel and it was so
awkward for her, well this time the instructor, bless her heart was young and not very confident and there were 8 people in the class most of which had never even worked on a wheel once, so it was a semi disaster. I know because I took that class with her along with a couple of our friends, it really is not that easy at all to get that wheel to do what you want. But my sister knowing that, didn’t quit, she gave it another shot, and I know she is glad I went and my friends went because it made her realize it’s not just her that’s awkward at the beginning it’s everyone! it takes a lot of failures to make a success. If she quits using the wheel because it’s uncomfortable or it’s not working out, she will never succeed but if she keeps doing the wheel, she will fail a lot and eventually she will succeed, that’s just how it works. The young girl that taught the pottery class learned that too. She was new to teaching and was very nervous. It was a beginners mug making class and I honestly wasn’t sure any of us were leaving that class with a fully made mug, it was that bad. But guess what? She told us up front she was new, and that she was nervous, that kind of put us on her team, we were rooting for her, I loved that she did that. Had she not done that we may have been frustrated that she was not able to help everyone in the way they needed it. At one point it was a little comical with clay flying everywhere. But we all have to start somewhere and that may have been the very first class she taught for all I know. I bet she learned some things that night that will make her better for the next class she teaches… if she sticks with it she will be just fine. She could have been doing anything that Friday night that would have been more comfortable then putting herself in front of 7 adults and one teen that were looking to her to teach them how to make pottery on a machine that doesn’t cooperate if you don’t know what you’re doing. But she hung in there and I’m sure she grew from that experience and we all had a really good time and yes we all ended up with some version of a mug. There were a lot of fails that night and ultimately a lot of successes too. We all grew. Which I love. I hope I never stop failing because that means I’m doing new things….And doing new things comes with embarrassing moments.
My first interior design job, I was a nervous wreck I felt like this client is going to sniff out that I’m new. She’s going to know I haven’t done this before and what if I cant answer some of her questions….all kinds of unhelpful thoughts but I went anyway and it turned out just fine. We decided we would do wallpaper in her dining room. So I told her I would bring her 3 options the next week so off I go into a wallpaper place for the first time as a new designer and I tell the lady working there that I am looking for wallpaper for a high end design client and as she was showing me all the books they had, I pointed to a book I saw and the name was one I wasn’t sure how to pronounce so I butchered it. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot. And she proceeded to say if you’re a designer, you should know how to pronounce the word Thibaut. Now that was the brand’s name, it was spelled THIBAUT. How would you know that unless you had been around it for a minute? I didn’t think that was a very nice way to educate me on that but I never forgot how to pronounce it. You’re gotta get uncomfortable to be successful. I could tell you hundreds of embarrassing experiences like that that have made me the designer I am today. And so could anyone that’s really successful at what they’re doing.
When you start anything, you’re gonna be new, you’re gonna have a learning
curve, you’re gonna fail and fail and fail and in the mean time, you’re gonna grow and grow and grow and as long as you keep growing eventually you will succeed more than you fail and that’s the goal, because if you ever stop having moments where you fail, you’ve stopped expanding and growing. And then you get stale. As a designer I still learn something new on every job. I hope that never stops because that means I’m reaching for new and better designs with every project, not just sticking to what I know and what’s comfortable.
I’m reaching for the best possible outcome, not the comfortable one.
That should be our goal for life right? In everything we do, what’s the best possible outcome? Most of the time it’s not in your comfort zone.
I’ve been swimming with my friend Leena, the other day, we were in the pool doing drills and I said ok you want to go another 400 meters without stopping? She said we just did that, we should go 500 at least…and that’s one of the reasons I love her…. I’m never hanging out in my comfort zone when we are doing things together…we are always pushing the limits. Because our limits are usually self imposed and not very true. My big sister thought because of her stroke she was awkward on the wheel, which is why she kind of pushed it aside. She confessed to me that’s why she stopped, she thought she was too awkward to do it, I laughed and said what does that say for me? I was more awkward than you and I haven’t had a stroke…but you see that thought was keeping her from continuing to fail on the wheel, because she thought her failing meant she couldn’t do it, it just meant she couldn’t do it YET. She had a self imposed limitation that wasn’t real.
What self imposed limitations are you putting on yourself? There’s so many that we do without even questioning them. There’s no way I could ever run 3 miles, there’s no way I could ever stop eating sugar, there’s no way I could ever stop drinking alcohol, there’s no way I could ever do this or that. But have you ever questioned those thoughts? Is it because you tried and failed? Is it because you tried and got embarrassed so you quit? Or maybe it’s because you’ve never truly tried…. All of those are self imposed limitations. We all have them. And we can all get past them but usually not without some discomfort and unfortunately sometimes embarrassment.
My point is to listen to yourself think when you’re wanting to try something new. Your brain wants to protect you and staying comfortable is a protection. So if you listen and you really hear what you’re saying to yourself you will see that those limitations you hear, you don’t have to believe them unless you want to stay where you are. But if you want to get on the other side of them it’s going to take grit and determination and every once in a while a little embarrassment. Which never killed anyone thank goodness because I would have died 100 times by now. My challenge to you today is to stop the next time you find yourself having a limiting thought and ask yourself if it’s true or if it’s just a protection mechanism to keep yourself safe and comfortable. My guess would be the latter. I guess the real challenge is to get ok with not being good at something right out of the gate. Be ok with the discomfort of not being great the first time you do something or the second or the hundredth for that matter! Be ok with being new. And let other people be new too. Share this with 3 people who love to try new things! I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
