Anytime you start a new project, you’re gonna fail. Everyone does. It’s just part of the learning process. If you’re like me, when failing, you’re completely crushed and shocked that you didn’t just come out of the womb knowing exactly how to do whatever you were doing. Can you believe it? Humans aren’t just “perfect”.
My brain is very rigid and has a hard time when my own expectations aren’t met, so when I make a plan to solve a problem, and it doesn’t work, I often end up feeling really discouraged. Especially if it’s in the middle of the work week, sometimes I just can’t recover. It isn’t until I take a step back and go “Ah, I feel this way because of this, let’s take a breath and make an adjustment,” that I start to be successful again.
It can be so hard to allow yourself to “stop” when its work related. It doesn’t have to be a long “stop”, but you need to allow yourself time to regroup and come up with a new plan. You can’t just keep going because it’s what everyone else is doing. Working remotely and working in tech allow for a lot of freedom and personalization. Those are some of the benefits, but they can also be a struggle. You have to design your own structure, and you’re going to have to stop and restructure pretty often.
Sometimes life compiles all of the bad things at once, and you have no option than to just push through. That doesn’t make it any easier, and it tends to make it more exhausting. How do you put work into doing better when you’re just so disappointed and tired?
Take a breath.
Center yourself.
And, make a plan.
Break things into small achievable goals and smash them with the victory hammer. I know how hard it can be, but you’re doing great, and someday you’ll get to where you want to be. Build yourself up, try again tomorrow, and keep track of your successes.
Learning how to fail is part of the process. It’s a skill you can carry with you through any job and any stage of life, and being successful at it will help you be big and strong in the future. Unfortunately, that means you have to fail over and over again until you learn how to recover from and learn from it. It’s hard to remember that hard things will lead to good things, but you’re doing great.
This new transition you’re facing is hard. It takes a lot of time to be successful, and I guarantee the people you’re comparing yourself to are people that have been doing it for a long time. Give yourself grace, and focus on building the things you want to become.