February 22, 2017
Interview with Guy Winch, author of the book Emotional First Aid
Mike Carruthers:
Failure is inevitable in everyone’s life and what’s interesting is…
Guy Winch:
When we fail at something it changes our perceptions it distorts our perceptions of the thing we failed at – such that we tend to see that goal as more difficult to achieve than it actually is.
Guy Winch, author of the book Emotional First Aid, says we’re all pretty good at shaking off some small emotional upsets.
And we tend to see our skillset and our abilities as more deficient than they actually are – literally in a distorted way. And we also tend to feel more helpless about being able to achieve the goal because we just failed it.
It’s important to fully realize these distortions for what they are.
And try and focus, even by making lists, of what are the variables if we were to tackle that again that are in our control. And things like; preparation and effort are always in our control – they’re always things that we can do differently or better.
As unavoidable as failure is it does take a toll on everyone because of how it impacts us.
It’s hurting your mood and it’s impacting something that’s called the need to belong. Because we all have this fundamental need to feel as though we’re a part of our tribe, a part of a fundamental circle of people. So we have to find ways to reconnect, we have to find ways to get feedback from people who care about us and value us – that indeed we are valuable, indeed we are wanted. To get back the things that are being damaged in that moment.
