Failure Only Happens When We Stop Trying

One of our therapists, Rachel Ramos, LCSW, frequently tells her clients that failure only happens when we stop working at something or give up. In any other circumstance, having a situation not work out doesn’t mean failure, having things not work out is a natural part of the learning process.

This can apply to healing. Even if healing doesn’t seem possible now, or if it’s moving slow, as long as you keep moving forward you will continue to grow. Some techniques are more helpful than others, and everyone is different and will benefit from different techniques. It’s easy to get discouraged and no longer be able to see the bigger picture if we feel like nothing has been working recently. If we can look back at progress over time, like what has changed in the past year? Two years? We may notice more about what has been helpful in our journey and what has not, and we can learn from this what to continue doing for growth.

Something that can also be helpful (in life tasks as well as healing) when we’re overwhelmed and feel hopeless is breaking the bigger picture down to more practical everyday actions. That could include taking intentional breaks, but we can always come back to something we have started if it’s meaningful to us. Climbing a mountain sounds overwhelmed, but walking 10 steps does not. If you can keep taking those small steps, after a time you may notice the mountain is behind you.