failure Archives - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

What’s Your Relationship to Failure?

How do you relate to failure? Do you believe failure is an essential part of success? Or do you believe that failure is to be avoided at all costs? How we relate to failure hugely impacts our openness and willingness towards risk taking and trying new things. If we see failure as something that is “bad” and that needs to be avoided at all costs, we will be less open to taking risks or trying things that are new, different, unfamiliar, or out of our comfort zone. However, if we believe that failure is part of the process, and that success without failure isn’t possible, we would be more willing to fail. […]

Can you handle the Effort Shock?

Posted on April 11, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Courage / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Grit / In the muck / Leadership / Life / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Thriving1 Comment

Recently I wrote about what it means to be a hero. Something I did not touch on is just how hard it is to create a life that is different and resonant; just how much effort goes into creating a meaningful and fulfilling life. My sense is that my last article could have perhaps left you confused. I shared that heroes are not special in some way. They are not extraordinary. They don’t have special powers. They are simply ordinary people doing extraordinary things. If this is true, then why do so few of us take up the challenge? Why are we not all the heroes of our own story?

The answer is Effort Shock. Let me explain… […]

Slow down and turn around: Honouring Completions

Posted on December 28, 2022By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Completions / Decision-Making / Failure / Goals / Life / Meaning / Planning / Purpose / Slow down / Thinking1 Comment

The New Year often evokes within most of us the need to set new year’s resolutions. It’s an invitation to start anew with a clean slate. And it’s been my experience that so often people are so eager to move forward, that they don’t take the time to slow down, turn around, and look back to where they had come from.

At the end of last year, I wrote about the value of celebrations and why I think it’s important to choose to celebrate our successes and milestones. My thoughts here are an extension of the discussion on celebrations because I also believe there is value in truly honouring completions… […]

If you must fail, make sure you fail spectacularly

Posted on May 17, 2020By ChantalPosted in Failure / In the muck / Life

I think we can all agree that we live in unprecedented times. Almost daily, we are being challenged to show up differently and do things differently. Individuals and organisations are being challenged to find new ways of moving forward during this pandemic.

It might not look like it, but you do have a few choices here. You can “wait it out”, i.e. hide away or stay low and wait for all of this to pass and things to get back to normal. The problem you have with this choice is that you are putting your life on hold indefinitely, since there is no precise timeline for when exactly we will resume our “normal” lives – if ever. There are also no guarantees that we will ever go back to the way things were before this pandemic started. And then of course you are also choosing to press the pause button on your life and remain in limbo, which can become frustrating and leave you feeling trapped, isolated, alone, even desperate. Not my favourite option, I must admit. […]