14 Jun “Fail faster”- 7 things that will change your life.
These messages scribbled on my fridge have been there for three years now, staring me in the face every time I go to the kitchen.
The first message is “Fail faster.”
The second, is my favourite quote: “Let everyone else call you crazy… just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there and don’t give much thought to where ‘there’ is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” This is from Phil Knight’s book Shoe Dog.
Both of these have massively impacted my life, and got me through some tough times.
In this article I’m going to share with you 7 things that have changed my life and could change yours too.
1. Moving
I grew up in a castle overlooking the ocean.
Well it wasn’t really a castle but it was a very nice home and it was opposite the beach. My parents took amazing care of me and provided everything I ever wanted without me even knowing I wanted it. So it was a castle in my princess eyes.
I was very comfortable in my castle. Almost too comfortable.
And so I chose to leave.
Moving out of home was the first time I deliberately got uncomfortable.
Something I’ve always been good at doing is recognising when it’s time to get uncomfortable. As you’ve probably heard, you can only grow OUTSIDE of your comfort zone, and I love to grow.
I really had no idea what I was getting myself into or how uncomfortable moving out of home would be. I just did it because I felt compelled to.
I did spend quite a few years having two week long ‘visits’ to my castle every month. But I never looked back.
When you’re in an environment that stimulates you, whether because it’s motivating or because it’s uncomfortable, it makes you take action. When you’re in an environment that is comfortable or stale, you’re more likely to get lazy and settle for things that don’t make you happy. Moving changed my life because it made me do things that I wouldn’t have done from a place of comfort.
2. Failing Faster
When you frequently “fail” you learn and through these lessons you GROW.
A LOT.
I think it’s human nature to want to grow and become better. But it’s hard. You have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone which usually comes with another struggle- overcoming your fear of failure.
The only way to overcome this is to do the things you’re scared to do more often.
The faster you can fail the faster you can learn why something didn’t work and the faster you can step up another level. That is why I have “fail faster” on my fridge. Failing is a good thing as long as you learn from it, then try again.
As long as you know what you want and keep working towards it, you can’t actually fail. There’s no need to be scared of failing!
Something that helps me get past the thought of “what if I fail” is what my chemistry teacher taught me. Even if you fail, what is the worst case scenario? People judging you? Losing some money and having to start from scratch with new insight and experience? Feeling disappointed in yourself?
Most of the time you will find it isn’t actually that bad!
3. Embracing Uncertainty
Whilst most people crave chocolate or chips, I used to crave knowing.
Knowing what was going to happen next and knowing how things were going to work out.
I would plan everything to the second and overthink every scenario. That was my way of knowing.
Turns out you can never know for sure what’s going to happen so I was totally wasting my time.
You can try to force things to happen a certain way but if something isn’t meant to be, then it’s not meant to be. The more you try to force it, the harder life becomes because the more resistance you’ll face.
One of my favourite words in the Japanese language is Ukiyo. It means “living in the moment, detached from the bothers of life.” If you’re always worrying about things turning out a certain way, then you’re living in the future and not the present. You can only control your actions and reactions in the present moment so there is no point worrying about the future.
The more you live with intent, but learn to flow with things as you work towards them, the easier life becomes and the more you’ll end up achieving.
I’ve decided that life is more fun and heaps easier when you don’t know all the answers. Embracing uncertainty and learning to flow with life has made me worry less and appreciate the present moment more.
4. Staying in Your Lane
I used to be pro at comparing myself to others. This was something that was holding me back from making my own progress for a very long time.
Comparing yourself to others will only make you feel those feelings that don’t help you! Feelings like I’m not good enough, or I can’t do that because I’m not like them, or I’m not deserving of that, or I’m jealous, or why does everything bad happen to me…
You have to play in your own lane!
I stoped comparing myself to others when I realised that to move forward I have to be so laser focused on my goals and what I’m doing that I don’t actually have energy to spend watching what others are doing.
When it comes to fitness stuff, you can’t compare your journey to anyone else because you’re different to everyone else! You won’t get far watching what others are doing and feeling bad about not being like them.
You’ll get way further if you focus on where you are at, where you wanna be and the things you need to do in the middle to get you from A to B. (If you need help working out what those things in the middle are then send me an email!)
Instead of comparing yourself to others you should compare yourself to the person you were yesterday! Focus on becoming just a little bit better, whether that be physically, mentally or spiritually. If you do this every day, over the course of a year, that equals a lot of growth and a lot of becoming more like the person who you want to be!
5. Learning How To Track Macros
Most of my clients are shocked when they start to track their macros. They either discover that they’re eating way more than what they thought, or they’re eating far too little for their goals.
This happened to me too. When I first tracked my macros, I discovered that I needed to be eating 100 grams more carbs per day for my goals.
Who’d have thought adding carbs would lead to progress, but it did. As soon as I added these carbs, my body started changing in the ways I wanted it to.
Learning how to track my macros not only helped me make progress in the gym and change my body composition, it also helped me relax about food. I stopped overthinking what I should be eating. I started eating food and enjoying it, knowing that as long as it fit my macros, I could enjoy cake or ice cream or whatever I felt like, guilt free. I stoped fearing food.
Knowing how much food you need to be eating will change so many aspects of your life. You can do so much more with a body that functions optimally because you’re eating right for your body and goals, as opposed to one that feels sluggish, tired, or hungry all the time because you’re not eating right. This begins with tracking your macros. You can learn more about how to do this in my article here.
6. Increasing Your Self Awareness
I’ve learnt more about myself than I ever knew there was to know over the past few years. There are many ways to develop self awareness, but for me this has happened through journalling.
Not just keeping a diary and saying things that have annoyed me or made me happy each day… I mean actually sitting down with my head and asking myself some hard questions. It always begins with writing surface level stuff but if you keep digging (by asking yourself the hard questions) you find that you can uncover so much shit that you never knew was holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself.
By doing this, you can start to take control over those things deep inside of you. The more you do, the more you learn who you really are, but you have to remove all the conditioning that has influenced you to believe the other things first.
Knowing how I am talking to myself, knowing how I am talking to others, knowing what I want, being able to recognise the lessons and learn from whatever challenges I’ve faced, been able to face my fears head on rather than hide from them, being able to heal, being able to recognise patterns in my behaviours and other peoples- this has all come from daily journalling. The result has been some crazy growth, better connections to others and a deeper appreciation for my life.
7. Cutting Out ALL Negative
Back to the quotes I stare at daily- they have changed my life too. They’re always there, even when I’m in a bad mood and have a million negative thoughts going through my head. They remind me to change my perspective and I don’t even have to do anything because they are just there. They flick that switch in my head which turns on positive Jodie mode.
The words you let into your brain are powerful. This includes the words that you tell yourself daily and everything you see and hear! Exposing yourself to things that lift you up will help you stay up, even when you don’t feel amazing.
This one thing has probably resulted in more forward movement towards my goals that anything else. If something doesn’t make you feel good, or if it doesn’t align with your goals, then cut it out from your life. This includes people, any content you’re consuming (like the news or people you follow on social media) and things you do. Replace them with things that do make you feel good or serve your goals. It will change your life!