If you’ve ever read a self-help book, you know the importance of setting goals. All self-improvement gurus, coaches and trainers encourage the setting of goals, in order to focus you on what you really want and maintain your momentum in moving toward it.
But what if setting a goal triggers your ‘failure program’? Many people avoid even contemplating goals, let alone fleshing them out and writing them down, because previous experiences of failure (real or perceived) make them afraid they if they set a goal, they’ll fail again – just like last time.
It’s like a part of them, from their past, is so afraid of the pain of failure, it stops them from doing anything that could trigger than pain again.
This failure program was so deeply installed in a client whom I’ll call Sandra, that when I asked her what achievements she’d made in her life, she couldn’t think of a single one. When I pointed out the successes that I knew she’d had, she either dismissed them or couldn’t connect with them as successes.
Sandra and I worked together on many issues and achieved some major breakthroughs. One session, she decided she wanted to take a break from the ‘heavy stuff’ and work on her golf game.
We started with a memory she had of trying out for the school netball team, not making the cut, and then finding out later that the PE teacher had already decided whom she wanted on the team before the try-outs, so Sandra never had a chance.
Through the Matrix Reimprinting process, we learned from her ECHO (the aspect of her younger self that got ‘stuck’ because of this incident) that the ECHO had – not surprisingly – concluded from this incident that life is unfair.
This was a belief that still dogged Sandra, decades later. Her perception was that achievements came easily to others, but in order to get anything, she had to work, and work, and work… and even then she would fail no matter how hard she tried.
Sandra tapped on the netball try-out incident until her ECHO felt quite OK about it. Then she asked her ECHO what she would have liked to happen instead. Her ECHO chose to completely rewrite the scene, so that she played so well in the try-outs that she simply couldn’t be overlooked for the team. Then she went on to become their star player.
Sandra could vividly visualise her ECHO scoring goals to rapturous applause from the spectators. When I had Sandra ask her ECHO what she believed about fairness now, she said that life can be unfair but you can still be happy and enjoy the good things you’re sent.
Several weeks later, I received the following email from Sandra:
Hi Robyn
Just thought I’d drop you a line re the Matrix Reimprinting we did on sport. You will recall the netball scenario we worked on.
Since then my golf has improved in leaps and bounds and I had two wins (prizes) this week alone. I still do EFT around the course but my whole attitude seems to have changed and I don’t have a sort of fear that I will blow it. I have a new confidence with my ability which is producing results.
I’ve even had comments from people I’ve played with and, today, a woman I’ve never met before, on how well I’m hitting the ball.
Not going pro just yet but loving it.
Sandra
Bobby Jones famously said that “Competitive golf is a game played on a five-and-a-half inch course…the space between your ears.” As Sandra discovered, just who lives in that space, and what they believe, makes all the difference to your game!
And of course, the change in attitude that Sandra noticed will affect far more than her golf score – neutralising the fear of failure allows us to set, and confidently work towards, bold goals in every area of our lives.
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