I have failed many times in my life. But I am not a failure. Just as I have done many intelligent things in my life, but I am working to decouple my identity as someone “intelligent.” Why? For me it breeds laziness, it feeds my ego, and it also causes despair when I can’t do something because “I should be smart enough, right?”

Instead I am trying to embrace that we all have failures and successes, smart moments and those we are not proud of. This is part of a growth mindset vs fixed mindset attitude.

Fixed mindset: I can’t do this. I am not smart enough, I was not born with the talent required. I am too lazy. 

Growth mindset: I don’t know this but I am capable of figuring it out, learning, overcoming and improving.

Failure is something that has been really hard for me to accept growing up as a perfectionist, overachiever. But I have learned it is a necessary component for life, for learning, for growth.

Embrace your failures and just see them as stepping stones to reaching your ultimate goal. None of us are failures unless we choose to see 1 failure as defeat.

(For those who don’t know… I am doing “30 days to 30” and sharing life lessons and stories in order to celebrate my birthday—hoping to break stigmas and stereotypes about what 30 means and looks like)