Have The Courage To Fail – Be Courageous Enough To Succeed Anyway
Updated: Jan 23, 2024
Written by: Tanja Bogataj, M.Sc., Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
This article is a continuation of two of my previously published articles, “Driving with fears” and “Let ‘IT’ Go and Let ‘YOU’ Grow”. In this article, I guide you through a self-coaching journey experience so you can keep connecting and co-creating with your fears, courage, failure and success. The aim is to become more and more aware and self-aware, so you can better articulate what’s the real challenge, find or create the best solution, and take the empowered action for the desired impact. This article is created in the formate of a self-coaching experience so you can breathe life into your life and into your courage, transform your failure/-s into learning, improvement, and stepping stones propelling you forward and upward on your path.
1. Courage to fail
Let’s set the scene for our experience:
A. Courage is the ability to do something that frightens us.
What’s 1 thing that frightens you?
B. How we feel, understand, and express courage is unique to each one of us.
How does it feel when you feel courage?
What does it mean for you to “be courageous”?
How do you usually express your courage?
C. Words ‘fail’ and ‘failure’ is used to describe situations, beliefs, and feelings when we:
try something, and we don’t achieve the desired outcome;
invest a lot of resources into something, and realize it was not the right thing for us;
perceive and/or feel we are not good (enough), we’re not successful (enough), etc.
Let’s focus on the C) for a while. For some good thinking, exploration, and creation, we need to make some room:
Write down some first thoughts on the words ‘fail’ and ‘failure.’
Choose 1 ‘fail’ / ‘failure’ that you haven’t yet forgotten.
Write your answers for each element of the following equation:
My Failure = My Learning + Me Knowing ‘IT’ Now Better + My Growing + Me Becoming = My new opportunity to succeed
What’s a drop of wisdom that you can now share after this experience (and can now become your new supporting belief): For example: “My last failure taught me to trust my intuition.”
2. Courage to stay in and face what is
“One needs to be brutally honest with the failure and look it in the eye, what I’ve done wrong, what I need to correct, what’s not working, and do the work.” ‒ Gari Kasparov
Here are a few thoughts from my article to contemplate on courage. It takes courage to:
maintain the status quo when our intention is to first explore and find better solutions for how to move on for all included, and not force our way;
revise your learned ways of doing things and try different and new ways to find better ways, to improve, or create a growing environment for your team;
not fight only for what we believe is ‘right, appropriate and best’ but being and staying open to understanding other points of view, staying in mutual exchange and learning, with the intention to understand and co-create;
not judge yourself or others, and instead, keep improving yourself.
According to Bruce D. Schneider (2008), energy is the potential that one has to succeed in her/his life. He says, “When conflict arises, it was usually occurring between his head, which is clouded with judgments, impressions, fears, doubts, and his heart, which knows the truth. If no dissonance exists between the two, nothing you ever hear will bring you conflict.”
Where do you put your energy – into fear or courage, failure or success?
3. Fear & courage dance through failures and wins on your success path
In the links below, you can find 3 videos where I’ve covered different topics on fear, courage, failure and success that might help you to go through your current challenge/-s, and practice the ‘be courageous enough’ muscle.
1. On courage and being brave to stay in “BraveHeart, Take the Lead” (duration 7:52):
Power of One:
What is 1 thing that inspires you to take action?
2. On courage to stretch from the comfort through the discomfort of uncertainty and unknowing “From comfort to success” (duration 18:40):
Power of Learning:
What is 1 thing you’ll integrate into your day-to-day practice?
3. On living and succeeding intentionally, and when you know better, you choose and do better “Make it Personal. Succeed Anyway.” (duration 4:16):
Power of You:
What is 1 thing that inspired you to keep on making the difference?
4. Be courageous enough to succeed anyway
Let’s conclude our self-coaching journey experience using one of the be powerful and free® tools for self-leadership:
“3 x Cs + 2 x Bs + 1 x A + Your ABC answers + Sign ✅”
Use this equation to answer what it mean for you to “Be Courageous Enough To Succeed Anyway”:
Use 3 x Cs:
Clarity
Creativity
Compassion
Anchor with 2 x Bs:
Be Powerful
Be Free
Define 1 x A
Action
Answer Your ABC:
Who’s the Authentic you in the situation?
Who do you need to Be to achieve the desired result?
What do you need to Commit to make it a reality?
Add how you’ll monitor the progress, put the date on, and Sign.
You WIN! Congratulations on your journey. Action time!
In a world where you can be anything, I invite you to be powerful and free, give the world the best of you, and make the difference that you are here to be and do.
Have the courage to fail, and be courageous enough to succeed anyway. Be inspired and keep inspiring others to succeed on their journey as well.
Take care.
Tanja Bogataj, M.Sc., Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tanja Bogataj is a Leaders' Consultant, Empowerment & (Self)Leadership Coach, Founder of be powerful and free® approach, based in Slovenia, working internationally. She's a lawyer from a background with two Master's degrees from Political sciences, and from Leadership and Management. In her work, she’s combining 20y rich experience working within the Government of Slovenia (of which 14y on leadership positions, covering portfolios like urban development, environment, green & circular economy) and 10+y experiences of coaching and leadership with coaching. Last 5 years she's helping leaders, coaches, entrepreneurs, and teams to free their power to expand impact while making a difference they are here to be and do.
Sources and References:
Bruce D. Schneider, Energy Leadership, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2008;
Tanja Bogataj, BraveHeart, Take the Lead, TBC YouTube Channel, November 2020;
Tanja Bogataj, Being Brutally Honest, be powerful and free Platform, blog post, November 2020;
Tanja Bogataj, Make it Personal. Succeed Anyway, TBC YouTube Channel, January 2021;
Tanja Bogataj, Mind-Stretching be powerful and free® Session “From Comfort to Success”, TBC YouTube Channel, November 2021
