I am currently at the best coffee shop downtown, enjoying the title of this article, with a blueberry orange muffin (sorry Weight Watchers, I think I just used all of my points for the day). Let’s talk about getting older. Such fun…

I Didn’t Freak Out About Turning 30

At 28, I felt pretty good. I had a good job, I wasn’t alarmingly overweight, and I had a direction for myself. Fast forward to today. I am over 30, and my mindset has done a complete 180 (where is the degree key????!!!). I am 80 pounds heavier than I would like, and it feels like any opportunity there could be for me to accomplish anything of note is slowly slipping past me.

What changed in between 28 and now?

Somewhere in that time frame I lost my purpose. Wait a second- what was my purpose before? When I started my jazz band, I am pretty sure my goal was ‘Be Pretty, Sing Pretty, Rinse, and Repeat’. My goals were superficial. They hinged on me being visible and hanging out ‘in the scene’.

As I Reflect on Who I Was Back Then…

I cannot help but feel somewhat disgusted at my behavior. Who did I think I was? No one has a right to act the way I did. My sense of importance was a ruse, and the fight to keep any semblance of who I was is immature. I know for certain there are people I thought of as less-than, and I am disgusted with myself over it.

I Am Not Who I Used To Be

I am not who I used to be. Underline that. Italicize it. Embolden it. And remember that you don’t look or act like you did when you were younger because you are literally a different person now.

Too many times have I punished myself in the mirror for not looking as good (so I thought) as I did when I was 28. Too many times have I not gone to an event because I didn’t want anyone I used to know in the band days to see me since I have gained weight. The outcome of feeling this way just gives me more excuses to not live my life to the fullest.

Living Your Life to the Fullest

Living your life to the fullest involves a lot of terrifying situations- trying new things, putting yourself out there and introducing yourself to new people, and learning to fail at skills until you master them. Human beings are averse to failure. So they avoid situations that would cause them to fail. Yet fear of failure is the number one culprit for why we have so much regret at the end of our lives.

What is the secret to achieving your goals and learning new things that feed that hungry brain?

For me, I think it is simple: go into every learning opportunity with the excitement of a child. And when you fail, fail well.

The Tech Industry and Failure

The tech industry is chock full of failure, and it is the industry I happen to work in. In order to learn in the IT industry, you must fail. So. Many. Times. Daily. You have to learn how to not do something in order to learn how to do it right. It is the poster child for trial-and-error leading to success.

Working in this industry for over 4 years has shown me that if you want to succeed you must be able to fail and pick yourself up and get back on the horse.

How can this mindset be maintained? With any new skill, it must be practiced until it becomes habit. Journaling daily can help. But throwing ourselves into activities we know will be difficult is probably the best way to keep this mindset fresh.

Fail well and fail often

This is one of the core principles within the software company I work for. It is the best and most valuable of the principles for me. It is far too easy to turn a hiccup into a failure. It is so difficult to look at something we have done incorrectly or poorly and think:

“Oh well now I know how to not do that thing”.

People who can view failures as learning opportunities are doing it right.

How can we learn to ‘love’ failure? Is that even possible? Love is a strong word, but everyone on this planet is capable of taking bad outcomes and treating them as positives. For yours truly I keep an intention journal I got from the Erin Condren website (they make amazing journals of all varieties and they are adorable).

You don’t need to journal every day to help you learn how to be accept failure better; that is just my method. There are so many ways to do this.

Watch Youtube videos about the subject, listen to podcasts, or even just post a sticky note on the dashboard in your car so you see it literally every day (something like “failure is growth. Quitting is giving up.” Or whatever helps you remember it).

Good luck. You got this.