Show notes
Feeling a Failure – Let's Solve It Ever felt like a failure? That heavy, gut-sinking emotion that says "I'm not good enough" or *"I've let myself (or others) down"? You're not alone. But what if I told you feeling like a failure is not a fact – it's a signal. And better still, it's something we can solve together. In this episode of the Personal Development Unplugged podcast, we go deep – but in only the way we can. I'll walk you through how those thoughts of failure sneak in, what they really mean, and most importantly, give you simple, practical NLP and hypnosis-based tools to shift that feeling fast. Learn how to: • Challenge and change the story you're telling yourself • Turn emotional feedback into empowering action • Reclaim confidence and self-worth (without toxic positivity) • Use the language of success to rewire your internal dialogue • Start new habits that build momentum, not guilt This isn't about pretending everything's great. This is about acknowledging the feeling, finding the real intention behind it, and creating real, lasting change. And it's simpler than you think — because, say it with me: In simplicity, there is genius. It's time to take that feeling of failure and use it as fuel for your personal growth. Listen now and reclaim your inner success story. Watch the full video episode too if you fancy seeing my face in action! Subscribe. Share. Let's help more people unplug from limitations. https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/455-feeling-a-failure-lets-solve-it https://youtu.be/zT59hSKIKvA Shine Brightly 🌟 Paul Hey there! I'd love to hear from you—questions, feedback, requests—all welcome. Drop me a line or leave a comment. If you've enjoyed this episode or any other, please share and subscribe! You can reach me at [email protected]. Subscribe to the Podcast Ready to subscribe? Click here to explore your options. Or, if you're on Apple Music or iTunes, you can go straight to subscribe or leave a review here. Special Programs for You For tools on developing Supreme Inner Confidence, finding Freedom from Anxiety, or specialized Hypnosis Tracks, visit PaulCloughOnline.com. Free Hypnosis Tracks Want access to my FREE hypnosis tracks? Head over to paulcloughonline.com/podcast. Connect with Me Follow me on Twitter: @pcloughie Remember: I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. This podcast and any of my online resources are for educational purposes only. Never use the hypnosis tracks or exercises if you're operating machinery, driving, or if you have epilepsy or psychiatric conditions. Always consult a healthcare provider if you're unsure. Find Us on Other Platforms Catch the podcast on Spotify, Castbox, iHeart Radio, YouTube, or on our Libsyn page. Stay tuned, and keep shining brightly. ✨ Music Credits Music by Wataboi, DreamHeaven, ccjmusic, and others from Pixabay. And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism Hey, my friends, my friend. I think there's one or two here. The longer podcast and feeling a feeling of failure. Let's solve it. But before I go into that, I want to tell you a little story. Because yesterday I recorded this particular thing. Feelings of failure. And guess what happened? At the very end, I went to play it back. Video wise? Yeah, it's there. The microphone hadn't been switched on. Zero audio. Zero audio. And do you know what? I felt such a dumbo. What a dim F-U-C-K. What? I was so, I shouted at myself. In fact, I shouted at the microphone for not turning itself off to start off with. I had to blame somebody. And then I realized, Paul, you've learned a valuable lesson. Always go back to basics. Check your basics. Check your intention and check your equipment to make sure things are all firing on all cylinders before we start. There you go. But I'm back again. And this feeling of a failure, because you see, sometimes to be a success, we think we need to have just one more minute, just a bit more, just a bit more. And sometimes it's just one more rep, just one more, just one more. But there's the other side of that, where we don't quite do that one more minute. We don't do that one more rep. And we think, do you know what? Yeah, that'll do. That'll do. And it's nearly there. I'll tell you what, I'll finish it off in the morning. And the thing is about the feeling of failure, and we are going to solve it by the way, it's not all about effort. Because effort, too much of it, can bring pain. And that pain generally comes from a clash of values. You see, what do I mean by that clash of values? You see, why do I keep saying you see? We'll find out. You want to work hard. You want to make a success of your career. You want to earn a lot of money, because you want your family to be safe. You want your family to be comfortable, have all the riches, and to enjoy life. Because you have family as a very high value. And that's what you want to do. So you work 25 hours a day, you work eight days a week. And you do it nonstop, because all you want to do is provide for your family. What happens? Well, your family ain't around, because your relationships just went up in the air. Because you were doing too much on one side of the equation, and not enough of the other. You didn't check your values first. And you see, it's a conflict. It's a direct conflict between one and the other. And you see, little conflicts become little cracks. And those little cracks tend to get bigger. They tend to get, over time, bigger and bigger until it's too late. And have you had this excuse? I know I have. And it's just such a stupid excuse. Well, I didn't see that coming. Yeah, of course you didn't bloody see it coming. You could have done. You could have done. And then you give that excuse. Yeah, but I was only doing it for the family. I was only doing it for this. I mean, the other one is, I want to get so super healthy. And you spend all the time in the gym. You run and you're doing this and you're doing that. And in fact, sometimes your body just falls down because you're unhealthy. But you lose, again, maybe social relationships. You maybe lose the time when you should be learning to get that harmony. It's a sort of balance, but I don't like the word balance. Harmony, when you do a little bit more one, something takes a little backseat, but then you bring it back up to you. So you do find a balance in the end, but you work towards knowing your values. So that's one way how we can have that feeling of being a failure. And we've created it. We chose to do it, by the way. If that was you, we chose to do that. But we didn't take account of our values. Let's flip it over. Let's flip it over. Because have you ever been guilty? I know I have. Of not quite doing enough. Not quite doing enough. Get distracted. Or sometimes I try to do a little bit of everything and do absolutely nothing at all. But at the end of the day, there is nothing. I've been very busy. I've been busy doing all that urgent stuff, thinking I'm being busy. But I've been distracted by this and that. Putting things off. And sometimes I've just been putting things off for instant pleasure. You know, that doom strolling. Whatever it is you get hits by. And you look back and you think, well, if only. I wish I'd. I could have done. I should have done. And you see, one of them is setting the bar so high. And you just go for it. And it's just too high. And it doesn't take into account all the different things that's going on in your life. The other one is too bloody low. And either way, life just seems to crash and burn and certainly crash and burn in the way that it doesn't feel empowering. It doesn't feel rich. It doesn't feel enjoyable. There is no enjoyable. It doesn't. There is no joy in it. And you see, I think. Yes, I think. I've remembered this button. I think they're all. Well, they both come from a sense of fear. Fear? Yeah. The first one, I'm frightened to fail. You know, I don't want to be seen to be a failure. Because, you know, I'd be a failure if I'm not able to support the people I love. I'm a failure because I can't look after my body. I'm a failure because I'm trying. I'm just so frightened about being that failure. But the whole point is, if those relationships go upside down, if your health takes a dive, and normally when things go that way with relationships, our health goes down or whatever, and then we don't go to the gym, and then we get worse and worse, and we still feel a failure. And you see, even with all that effort, because we're frightened of being a failure, what do we feel? A failure. So we are actually creating that direct conflict. I don't want to feel a failure, but I'm now creating a life where I do feel a failure. And it's only your thoughts. The second one, let's think about the second one. Putting off things, excuses, you know, for not performing. We just give, we love to give an excuse. We really do, don't we? We just love to give excuses. So it lets us off the hook. You see, if we put excuses so we can have that such a low bar that we don't have to perform, we'll never be judged. And if you're never judged, because you're not failing, because you're always doing 30%, you know, I've done 31% to date. But how do you feel? What's the result? Well, you try to do it so you can't fail. But inside, you feel a bloody failure. And with both of those, you get this identifying belief. Identifying, I mean, it's at your identity level. I am a failure. I am a failure. How does that generalise into the rest of your life? When you have a belief, I'm a failure, because what tends to happen is we have a belief created over here. And it then generalises into different contexts of your life. And if you're taking, I'm a failure into different contexts of your life, guess what? Life doesn't go too well. And other things change. But here's the rub. Here's the thing. Here's the thing we can do about it. What we can do about it. You see, in NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, there's a presupposition, or there's a whole list of presuppositions, and they're called useful assumptions. And I love to try to live my life by these useful assumptions, because they just work. And one of them is, there's no such thing as failure. It's just feedback. Now, if you add that to the five keys to success, what? Yeah, the five keys to success. I've talked about it before, but I'm going to put it in this solving feeling of failure. Because if we live our life with those five keys, success has to come through. Therefore, failure does not exist. And if failure doesn't exist, because it's only feedback anyway, we get to do it properly. We get to live our life in a way. So let me explain. Let me explain. I wish you would. I wish you would, Cloughie. Well, here I am. What's the first key to success? Well, it's knowing what you want. But the thing is, it's not just about knowing what you want. It's about setting your intention. But first of all, before you go flying off, look at your values. Why is this important to you? And then check in your other values. What are the other things in your life that are important to you, such as family, such as social, such as career, such as your health? Which one of those? And do they all support each other? It's that little thing I call the ecology check. Is it good for you? Is it good for others? And is it good for little old planet Earth? Now, if you get those three and you consider them, and you don't have to be 100% right, by the way, you just consider them. Because if the ones that jump out and go, well, if I do work this hard, I really got to either explain to my family that there'll be days when I'm working very hard, but I'm going to make it up. And I want you to support me and go back off, come back into the family. I need that help. If it's hitting the gym too hard, get someone, your friend to say, well, just hey, come on, let's just rest. Let your body rest. Because when you rest, you're going to get more healthier and let it affect other areas in your life. Will it affect my work? Will it affect this? Will it affect that? Check those values. It doesn't take long. And I think once you've checked them, then you can take action, which is the second key. But you're taking action, setting the bar at the right level. What's the right level? Well, it isn't bloody 100%. I'll tell you that now. One thing, you can't reach 100%. You can't. And I really chuckle to myself when I hear people say, give 110%. Do you know what? That's pretty difficult. You've only got 100%. The bucket is full at 100%. But if you give 100%, which is so damn difficult, because you'll never really do 100%, because you don't quite know what 100% is. If you listen to David Goggins, he thinks a lot of people think 100% is only 40%. And then that's when they give up. But David Goggins isn't. So his 40% is maybe there. But the thing is, if you set your bar too high, you're never going to make it. And guess what happens? Oh, I'm a failure. What happens if you set it too low? Well, we just know. We're never going to feel that we've achieved anything. Because we know in our hearts that we could have got there. Easy. So what's a good percentage? 80%. 80% is great. Why 80%? Because whatever you do at 80%, it's achievable. It's bloody hard to achieve, by the way. 80% is to be consistently at 80% is a good bloody record. You will be in the top little percent of everybody if you're hitting 80% regularly, consistently. And that's consistently in all different areas of your life. But the thing is, you say, oh, 80% poor, that seems low. You'll find out it's pretty difficult. But the thing is, week on week, that 80% grows. Because that 80%, say in a month's time, is equal to 100% of what it was a month ago. So you're growing, you're getting stronger. But as you hit 80%, you can feel damn, that's good. You'll see the results. And the one thing is, you don't get injured. If you're going to the gym at 80%, you'll never get injured. Yeah, occasionally you go a little bit more to grow. But 80% is good. You know, if you're giving 80% to your relationships, again, you're doing more than most people. And it just keeps growing. Let's say that 80% just gets bigger. And when you get that 80%, it feels bloody good. You feel a success. Wow. And the thing about this is, so you've set your bar at the right level, you've got your intention, you know that you're going to be aware of all your other values, the other important things in your life. And it's that awareness, which is the third key, by the way. Third key, the third key of the five keys of success is awareness. It's that review that you have. And we've talked about reviewing. If you review too often, it's overwhelming, you don't see any difference. If you review too late, you'll miss it. But you need to review, are you in the right direction? Are you in the right projection? Are you caring for your values? Because you need to choose whether you need to put a little bit more over here or back off over there. You choose, you see. And if you're really thinking about your values, and you ask yourself the question, am I doing enough? Because sometimes, actually, I haven't been getting anywhere near that 80%. Or am I doing too much? Because I'm trying too hard and I'm losing a little bit of a value. You then get the fourth, the fourth key, which is flexibility, because you've now done that review, you understand this, because you always have to make adjustments. And when you make adjustments, it's that flexibility to know, I'm just off course. And if I keep going off course, for a period of days and weeks, I'm going to be miles out of the way. And we're always off course, aeroplanes are always off course, apart from the two times, once when they take off and once when they land, but they're always making subtle adjustments to keep on course. And when you have that flexibility, and one of the presuppositions, useful assumptions of NLP is the person with the most flexibility rules the system. That's a weird way of saying it. But if you have flexibility in your life, you will be able to rule your life, but you'll certainly govern your life, you'll be in charge of your life, you'll be empowered to create what you want. And it's all about choosing them. Because of that flexibility, you can choose what you need to do, step up, decrease, add more effort over here. Each time you do that, guess what, you feel empowered. And when you're empowered, you feel 867. And here's the one I love. You see, if you think about it, there's a fifth key. The fifth key is, we've talked about it so many times, but it's a diamond. Act as if, and I'm going to slow down now because I got excited. What is acting as if? It is not faking it till you make it. Acting as if is knowing if you were to have the results that you wanted, what you dream of, your goal, what you're aiming for right now. And if you were to visualize that, what would it be like? How would you act? How would you work in the world? Because it's acting as if with a physiology and a psychology of excellence. So how do you breathe? How would you walk? How would you look after your body? How would you eat? What would you feed it in? In the things that you listen to, you look at, you read. And the psychology, what would you think? What beliefs would you have? What empowering positive beliefs? What behaviours would you use? Healthy behaviours. Now, if you knew what that would be like when you've achieved that goal, what's stopping you acting as if you've got it now? Because you now know how to act. And do you think if you acted that way, when you start to take that action, wow, you would get there. You would get there so much quicker than you would before. Because acting as if just bloody works. It's telling your unconscious mind, this is it. This is where we're going. People get it too, because your nonverbal communication, acting as if, tells them you mean business. You're professionally being your best. When I say professionally, you're professional you, being the best you can do. And you see, none of this is what? None of it is bloody rocket science. It's common bloody sense. But there is no common in sense sometimes. So it's not rocket science, but it is simple. And if you haven't made notes, I really think just when we finish, just go back a few minutes and then just make these notes again. Because it will rocket you. Because it's not rocket science, but it will rocket you to success. It will not fear a failure and the feeling of failure out of the window, which means we've solved it. You see, once you get past step one, which is understanding what you want, setting your intention and making sure that your values are all accommodated, they're all working with each other. You just keep rinsing and repeating steps two to five, because you just keep taking more action. But you're taking more action on the things that you're aware of what needs to be done, because you're flexible. And you've got that acting as if, the psychology and physiology of excellence. So here's the thing. This applies to everything. Everything you do, because everything you do is a decision, which is a goal towards a goal to do something. You have an intention to whatever you decide to do, there's an intention to it. Well, if you could get this as a habit, and it's certainly an unconscious habit. Man, your life would be wonderful, wouldn't it? It would be and I use the word too often. It will be rich in every sense of the word. And the thing is, see, once you start succeeding in one goal, that will affect every other area of your life. Because once you start feeling that feeling of success, once you get that confidence in your competence and the skills that you learn, they will transfer. It's like skill stacking and moving into different areas of your life. So once you get that confidence in one side, your relationships get better, your social, whatever they call it, social capital goes up, because people just get to be around you, because you're now interesting and interested, because you're just going through life and you're just getting it. But here's the thing, this is where we slow down. Just like at the beginning, sometimes we just need to pause, it's that review. But just as a whole, not just at the goal, but as a whole, we just pause, take a breath. This is my five minutes to just ask myself, how are things going? How are things going in my life? When I look at all the areas of my life, are they all gelling? Let's just make sure there isn't that clash. Now, how many times do you do that? And this reviewing? I think weekly. Weekly is a great time. We can do it daily. If we get a feeling that something's wrong, sometimes you have to stop, maybe ask somebody, how am I doing? Am I happy? Because you could be going through life's big success in the term of you're achieving those goals, but are you happy? Because if you're not, something's wrong with those values, isn't it? Am I secure? And it's not necessarily financially secure. Am I secure in myself? Have I got that inner strength? Do I feel that inner confidence? And that can be just a feeling of being comfortable. And if you don't feel comfortable, just start to look at the different areas of your life and you'll notice which one makes that uncomfortableness a little bit more intense. Right, I'm going to work on that. I'm going to get that balance right. I'm going to get that just a little tinkering. It might just have to be a little bit. But when we do this, how good does it feel? I'll tell you how good it feels. It feels bloody good. And you feel empowered to do more. And when you're empowered to do more, guess what? You become that example to others. The example to others, how to live a good life. How to live a good life by being the best version of yourself. And then you could just say, well, could I do more? Could I give? And this is where I know you're going to say, oh, Cloughie, no. But what can I give to others? How can I use all of this to serve others? Selfless service. Because that's where it all begins. As I always say, this has come at the end. But it all begins, if you can add selfless service into this, doing stuff without any expectation of return, that's when you are the complete success. And if you're not, just redirect your efforts. Well, there you go. I hope, I hope this is recorded. I hope that I've covered everything. I hope, there's a lot of hope in here, isn't there? But I hope that you've, you can see there is no need ever to feel a failure, even though, even if you believe failure does exist. But we can solve that and look to feeling positive emotions, look to have wonderful, empowering, positive beliefs that support us, people around us, and little old planet Earth. If I haven't, if I haven't made it as elegant and eloquent, I love those two words, as I could have done, please let me know. Let me know where I was a little bit confusing or confused. Just email me, personal development, no, it's feedback at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. If there's an area, you say, Cloughie, this is absolutely fantastic, because it is, by the way. This is fantastic, Cloughie. But there's always a but on a sentence like that. What about, you fill in the blank. Well, if you have a blank that says, Cloughie, but what about, fill in the blank, again, send me that email. Great podcast, Paul, Cloughie, but what about? And I will come up with something, a process, a longer podcast, a five minute quickie, something or redirect you to a hypnosis track. One way or the other, we'll find a way to deal with the buts, because there's, don't want any buts in our life. Yeah, we don't. So do let me know. And if you could, if you found this interesting, by the way, if you did find it interesting, if you find it a benefit, I bet your friends, the people like you would find it interesting and something of benefit to them too, because they are like you. So if you could share it with, firstly, your friends, because that'll be good. And then just to spite them, send it to the people you're not quite liking. But I can tell you what, when you do this, you are going to build up your social capital by sharing good stuff. They're going to appreciate it. Yeah, if you could do that, that would be awesome. Have fun. I know you're subscribed and I know you're following, are you? Sharing stuff? Yeah, I know. I know it's difficult. But if you could, it makes such a difference. It makes a difference to I think the algorithms or something. It makes it more acceptable, but accessible to other people. And it makes me feel good too. And I like feeling good. Because if I don't, I feel a failure. And then I got to go through this again. Anyway, have more fun than you can stand. And guess what? Sometimes you can go through life and just wonder, I feel happy for no reason. Why is that? Because Cloughie said so. Okay, it's time to fly, my friend. You go fly. We all need time to de-stress, don't we? We all need that space. Everyone needs space. Our own place of personal retreat. And going to retreats are great. But if you can't, why not have one in your mind? You know, if you don't go to that special place, that stress just builds and builds and builds. But if you have a place in your mind where you can go and de-stress, work out problems, think of all the wonderful things that you'll be able to do. The wonderful feelings. So that's why I've created this program of four hypnosis tracks to build and be and have your own inner retreat. You can have whatever you like in that inner retreat. There could be rooms, there could be libraries, healing rooms, different lighting, maybe a fire in the corner, a special chair, maybe incense, anything that you choose. Some people have a computer that stores all the memories you've ever had, that library of everything you've ever read or everything you ever need to know. Maybe a healing room, room where you can just go to and have your own inner healing or own inner relaxation. So what have I done? I've created these four tracks. One to build, one to extend it whenever you need to extend it. And then to be able to go there for a particular period of time or even a longer period of time. So you've got two tracks of just going and being in that special place where you can, you know, take a problem with you, maybe muse it over in that special place, or you can leave it there, leave it to incubate in your unconscious mind. So when you come back, well, you can just have the answers come or they might just come consciously. It's all there for you. All you have to do is go to poolclubonline.com forward slash retreat, have a look, give you a nice little video there, just see if it's for you. I think it's a lovely little program. There's nothing to lose because there's a 30 day money back guarantee. It's a lovely program. And I think it was one I wanted to do for myself because I just thought it's just a wonderful thing to do. I love retreats. But hey, this is your own personal one. Have a look. Enjoy. Warning, you are now leaving the unplugged mind of Paul Clough. It's time to fly and run. Be brave, my friend. Personal development unplugged. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. 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