Fail forward moms!
No. That is not a typo.
Yes. You read that right.
Failure is one of those words that gets a bad rap.
It’s the other four-letter F word.
No one wants to fail.
The dictionary definition of failure seems innocent enough: a lack of success or the omission of the expected or required outcome.
The problem is what people make it mean about themselves when they fail.
“It didn’t go right this time, so something is wrong with me, and I will never succeed at helping my child with their addiction.”
What if from now on you think of failure as learning?
How freeing would it be to keep trying after each failure because all it means is that you just learned another way not to help your teen?
The only real failure is giving up or never trying.
I love seeing stories about inventors and how many times they failed before the invention worked.
It is a reminder that failure is a teacher.
As parents we fear failing because we think we are going to ruin our kids lives.
Don’t be so afraid of failure or making the wrong choice that you won’t try something new when it comes to helping your teen.
I had more fails than I can count when it came to trying to help my daughter with her substance use.
My biggest fail was not following my instincts when choosing a rehab because I was scared and desperate.
My daughter lasted about four days there, she ran away, and I still had to pay them for a month.
HUGE FAIL.
But, I learned what to watch out for when looking for a rehab, what questions to ask, and most important, I learned to trust my instincts.
I don’t regret that fail or any of the others.
They all kept me failing forward and learning.
Each fail was a step along the way that got me where I am today.