Failure is Your Restart Button
We all have fears, and although some seem scarier than others’, how can you tell someone their fear isn’t big enough? I’m going to cut straight to it, I’m scared of failing. Why? Well, I think my family made me that way. If you know me, you know I have what my mother calls “a stank ass attitude” and I was truly a spoiled brat. I was always told that I better be something that made a lot of money because I liked too many nice things and love having the leisure to do and go where I want. I feared of letting my family down and I feared not having a luxurious life, but I was willing to struggle for what I wanted, just scared that failure would be the end result.
At an early age I knew that a typical job wasn’t for me, but who am I to think I don’t have to work a basic 9-5 job? I felt like I was missing something because I was never in love with it and I was always scared to tell my parents how I was feeling or to quit because I simply didn’t like it. Even in school my grades were average but I tried to compensate by being skilled in other ways to seem exceptional. So when asked about my grades I still had a bit of excellence to pride myself on. All of my flaws have always made me scared if I’d find someone who truly loved me and could deal with my moodiness, if I would find a career that didn’t feel so much like a job, if I will be a good parent or even be successful at having kids.
Like I’ve said before, when I moved to California, I was in debt to the moon. For the last few years I have been traveling and “living my best life” knowing that I needed to be saving and paying back my debt. I had covered up my money problems with trips and during that time I could barely sleep due to knowing that one day it would all catch up to me. Years ago I wanted instant gratification, when now I’m at home, watching all of my friends travel and doing things I should’ve waited to do when I had the means and my account wasn’t at risk of going negative. I kept this to myself in fear of hearing that I had ruined my future in buying a home, cars, or just owning anything. But have I failed…NO!
Being honest about my flaws and stupid mistakes helped me realize that if I didn’t change my spending habits, I would fail and everything Dom and I are trying to build would be at a halt trying to clean up a mess he wasn’t in my life for. I had to make one of the toughest and embarrassing decisions of my life, which was filing for bankruptcy. At this point, I had credit card debt being garnished from my check, and soon I would owe on the car accident from February of last year. I’d wake up nearly every morning disgusted with myself and knowing I dragged this man into my bullshit. I was roughly $16,000 in debt at 27 (not including school loans). Talk about failure. But once I filed, we both found a sense of relief. I could start over, and sleep peacefully now. Granted I can’t have any form of credit for a while but it showed Dom first hand what debt looks like. I’ve pretty much made all of the life mistakes for him.
When I started my business, I decided to take things slow this time because in my experience when I’ve tried to start projects, they failed because I was so pumped about the idea that I didn’t take my time figuring out the specifics. As you all know, 2019, is my clean slate, the cleanest it’s going to get. Dreams die fast when there’s no foundation to build the reality. I have learned that instant gratification has always ended up FAILING me. The sense of feeling behind, stagnant, or less than is just part of the process. Change your actions and the results have no choice to fall in line. I am blessed to have taken action on my faults before they were irreversible. Think of failure as a restart button because it’s never the end.
