Learn To Fail To fail

							Title:
Learn To Fail To "fail"!

Word Count:
1003

Summary:
We are all very good at making ours
elves feel bad. We come by the habi
t honestly. Think back to learning
to spell in grammar school. Our tes
ts come back from the teacher with
the errors marked with red checks.
A quick review of our formative yea
rs probably shows much more attenti
on was paid to our failures, and th
ose times when we fell short of exp
ectations, than to those times that
 we succeeded, or even excelled. Of
ten, only the top achievers—the bes
t athletes and the bright...


Keywords:
failure, success, hypnosis, hypnoth
erapy,Portland,Richard Lefever,hypn
otism,quit smoking,smoking


Article Body:
We are all very good at making ours
elves feel bad. We come by the habi
t honestly. Think back to learning
to spell in grammar school. Our tes
ts come back from the teacher with
the errors marked with red checks.
A quick review of our formative yea
rs probably shows much more attenti
on was paid to our failures, and th
ose times when we fell short of exp
ectations, than to those times that
 we succeeded, or even excelled. Of
ten, only the top achievers—the bes
t athletes and the brightest schola
rs are recognized. This leaves the
vast majority of us becoming more e
ffective at gaining vital recogniti
on by falling short, than by rising
 above. The media producers know th
at bad news draws more attention (a
nd advertisers) than good, so our d
aily ration of news from radio, TV,
 computer, and papers is notoriousl
y skewed toward the bad.

In order to play our part in this c
ultural game of we tend to become v
ery good at sniffing out failures.
After all, if we are going to be no
ticed for our failures, it’s only f
air that learn to notice the failur
es of ourselves (they might miss on
e!) and of others. Our senses becom
e finely tuned to locating and focu
sing on the moments in life that ar
e less than glorious. We become ver
y good at making ourselves, and oth
ers, feel bad.

I am a hypnotherapist, and my speci
alty is helping smokers become non-
smokers. It is always astounding to
 me how the minds of some people wo
rk. A typical smoker that visits me
 has been smoking for 10 or more ye
ars, about 30 cigarettes a day. Tha
t is, over their smoking career, ap
proximately 100,000 cigarettes. To
say the least, a well practiced hab
it. I work with them for a little o
ver an hour, and they leave with ma
jor changes in that habit. The smok
ing habit may not be completely gon
e after the first visit, but it is
always greatly reduced. Since I cov
er my work with a lifetime guarante
e, I usually get to see the client
again if the first session isn’t co
mpletely successful in rendering th
e client a non-smoker. Almost inevi
tably, when a client has to come ba
ck, he or she will have done very w
ell for several days (the average i
s 5). Then, thinking this has been
too easy, the client start looking
for urges or desires for tobacco. L
ooking for evidence of failure. Whe
n they find one, they will use that
 desire for tobacco as proof that t
hey are still 'smokers', and they w
ill start smoking again.

When you think about how many cigar
ettes they didn’t have that they no
rmally would have had during that 5
 days (5x30=150), that is 150 chanc
es to say to themselves “Wow! More
proof that I am a non-smoker!” Inst
ead, the evidence they seek is for
failure. That is, after all, what w
e are all trained to look for. So,
that first cigarette they smoke far
 outweighs the 150 that they didn’t
 smoke. This seems a bit odd.

The second visit to my office nearl
y always consists of retraining the
 client to appreciate the cigarette
s they don’t smoke as more signific
ant to their new life as a non-smok
er than that first one that they di
d smoke. I do incorporate that info
rmation in the first session, but f
or some nascent non-smokers the exp
erience of falling for that one cig
arette is necessary. It seems to c
learly illustrate why they need to
retrain their interpretation of exp
eriences, from proof of failure, to
 proof of success. I rarely ever ha
ve to see a client more than twice.

If we were better at paying attenti
on to our successes in life, or eve
n just our ambling undramatically t
hrough our day, instead of focusing
 so resolutely on our failures, I w
ould rarely ever have to see a clie
nt twice for smoking. Life would al
so, in general, be a lot more fun.

Better yet, why not become good at
noticing all of those moments that
we fail to ‘fail’. Even the most dr
amatic of us is very likely to expe
rience far more moments of life whe
re we have been unsuccessful at fai
ling. Of course, there are those gl
orious moments that we fall far sho
rt of failing, and succeed miserably.

What would it take to change our fo
cus? Can you imagine what life wou
ld be like if we had a magic wand t
hat changed our focus from the erro
rs in our lives to the moments that
 we get right (almost always the va
st majority of our moments). What i
f instead of recalling, in detail,
the unpaid bills, unresolved issues
, and unfulfilled experiences of la
ck; we recall the unsung moments of
 joy, smiles, or just the nearly in
visible moments we sailed through u
naware. It’s a safe bet, if you are
 reading this, that your heart is b
eating, your lungs are pumping, and
 all of the amazing things your bod
y does to stay alive are going on.
That’s certainly worth a bit of gra
teful recognition. Not to mention t
he amazingly complex process of rea
ding and comprehension that you are
 currently experiencing. Wow!

How about getting up this morning?
Regardless of how humble your first
 waking moments might have been, yo
u did somehow make it to wherever y
ou are now reading this. Take a bow.

Why don’t we pretend we do have a m
agic wand? Whenever you wave that w
and you become more aware of good s
tuff in your life than bad stuff.
Make up your mind that you’d rather
 smell the flowers in life than the
 fertilizer, and wave that imaginar
y magic wand. Dedicate yourself to
noticing when you fail to fail.

I predict that, with a bit of pract
ice, what you will find is that you
 can change the kind of experience
that your attention is tuned to, li
ke changing channels on your TV, an
d thus change your ongoing experien
ce of your world. Sure, challenging
 stuff will still happen, guarantee
d! But, those challenging moments d
on’t have to define your life. Lear
n to fail to fail, and you will smi
le more often.