“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
Often failure can indeed appear fatal, especially when we experience failure in similar ways, over and over again. Like relationships with the wrong people that always blow up in the same way or opportunities lost because we rubbed someone the wrong way – again. Often when we repeatedly fail in similar ways again and again there is a deeper lesson we need to learn.
These patterns of failure suggest that there is a deeper script, an unconscious way of being and doing, that is undermining our present progress. As we grow and develop into fully (hopefully) adult human beings, we learn many lessons about the world around us and how to deal with the people in it. Sometimes these lessons are something like “the best defense is a good offense” or “avoid conflict at all costs” or “other people’s feelings are more important than mine.” At some point in our lives, these prescriptions for behavior enabled us to survive or even succeed. But when a pattern of similar failures appears in our lives, often these unconscious patterns need to change.
This is another example of a great time to reach out to a professional counselor. Professional counselors are trained to listen to someone’s story and identify these patterns and recognize the under-lying theme. Then we can help you regain conscious control over your happiness and well-being by re-evaluating these previously unconscious scripts, helping you find a new path to success.