You're not a failure
Brad Schipke, who hit rock bottom with weight gain and unemployment, argues that feeling like a failure comes from impossible standards you set yourself, not from actual failure. He suggests redefining wins: getting out of bed counts. Writing down three wins and five gratitudes daily rewires your brain to notice progress instead of what you're missing.
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Hey everybody, Brad Schipke here, and today I have another very important message that I want to tell you, that I want to share with you, um, because I hear it all the time and I had it myself in my own life. People who have PTSD, who have gone through so much trauma, feel that they are just complete failures, and that's just not the truth. You're not a failure. You haven't failed at anything. You've just gone through something extremely, extremely hard. You're in a lot of pain. And that's not your fault. You're not failing. I used to think I was the biggest failure, biggest loser in the world. And I just remember being in my basement at my rock bottom, and I probably put on 20, 30 pounds. I couldn't hold a job. Um, I had all these big goals of starting a business and growing it into this massive enterprise, and I couldn't take any constructive steps to get there. I just remember waking up morning after morning after morning and not wanting to face the day. It was just too painful to wake up, to get up, to do anything. Even just getting out of bed to take a shower felt like I was climbing Mount Everest. I felt like it was like this big impossible job because I had this huge massive weight just on my chest and on my shoulders from all the pain I went through in my past. And you know, that wears you down when you go through days and days and weeks and months and years of wanting these big goals and not being able to take action to achieve them. That wears you down to the point where you start believing that those big goals aren't for you in the first place, that maybe you aren't really cut out for this, or You're not made for it, or that those— that life just isn't for you anymore because you're broken, you're a failure, you're a loser, and none of that is possible for you. But I'm here today to tell you that that's not true. It's just a bunch of crap. It's a bunch of crap that we believe. And it's not that you're a failure. It's not that you've, you know, you've failed on all these things, or that you're a loser, or that you can't do these things. It's that you've been through an immense amount of pain. You've been through so much trauma, and you're not a failure. You're just hurt. You're just hurt. That's it. And what you need right now isn't more pressure, isn't more self-talk telling you how bad you are or how much of a fail you are, or thinking about all the things that you've, you know, failed on, all the people you've let down. I know what that feels like, and that is soul-crushing. You don't need any more of that. You need love. You need understanding. You need to look at yourself from a different perspective and see you as you would see one of your loved ones in the same experience. Because I guarantee you that you would not say the things you say to yourself to someone you love who's experiencing exactly Who was if they were experiencing exactly what you were experiencing right now? You would tell them, "Hey, it's okay. You're gonna get through this, and no matter what it takes, I'm here every step of the way, right by your side, to love you, to support you, and to push you to get there." But instead of doing that for ourselves, we tell ourselves that we're a loser, that we're a failure, that we'll never get this. But that's just not the case. So you need to become your own best friend, your own best lover, your own best cheerleader, whatever that is to you. That inner self-talk is so vital during these moments of hardship. And what are you saying to yourself? What are you saying to yourself? Maybe you're not even aware of the mental patterns or the mental loops that you keep going down again and again and again, and you're just driving that, that screw deeper. You're just driving that belief deeper and deeper and deeper into yourself every time you repeat those thoughts. And that's where it starts to change. You start becoming aware of when you have those negative loops and you start making the intentional choice to switch that, that intentional choice to interpret your situation differently, because your situation is the way it is. That's the reality. But it's the way that we interpret reality that affects us. And that interpretation is up to you. How are you going to interpret your scenario? Are you going to interpret everything that's happened to you and come to the conclusion that you're a failure, you'll never do anything right, and you'll never amount to anything? That's what a lot of people do, but that's just one interpretation, and your interpretation can be changed. You can reinterpret your life, to look at it from the lens of, hey, I've just gone through something extremely, extremely hard, and that's okay. I need to be patient with myself. I need to love myself. I need to look at— see wins in different arenas. So like, when I was back hurting so much, I was like, okay, if I am not taking action, if I'm not working 10, 12 hours a day on my job, on my Dream on my business, then I'm a failure. That was my benchmark for success, right? Maybe what's your benchmark, right? Like where are you setting that where it's like okay if I do this, then I'm I'm a success. If I do anything less than this, then I'm an absolute failure piece of shit that will never amount to anything, right? That's those that's how we talk to ourselves, right? It's like we set these bars that are really just arbitrary in the first place, and then we're like if we don't achieve this, then we're nothing. We're dirt. What is that bar for you? And what you need to do is you need to lower that. And I like— I like— there's part of me that hates that. And I'm not saying lower the bar in your overall dreams or goals. Keep your overall vision and your goals high, but you need to lower your bar to be like, what's a win and what isn't? What constitutes I had a great day today and whatever not? But really, it comes down to what What is progress? What is a win for me in this moment? Because wins can look differently, regard— or depending on where you are in your recovery journey. In the very beginning, a win could be, I got up this morning, I took a shower, I went for a walk, I meditated, I watched a video. That can be a win. But we don't realize that. We don't see that in our life. We don't see that, hey, I did something good for me, and that's progress for me. But a lot of times we don't, we don't give ourselves credit where credit's due. So what you need to start doing is celebrating yourself for the smallest of wins. And they seem small, but they really are huge. And you want to start shifting your mindset to be looking for those things. Automatically, and what I want you to do right now: reflect on your day right now, wherever you are. What is one win that you had today? Something in the past that you may have looked at and been like, "Oh, that's not a big deal," but then reinterpreting your life, your situation, where you are right now, to look back on that and be like, "That's a win. That's a massive win for me," and then actually taking a second to close your eyes and take that in. I want you to do that. What is one win? And something that I highly, highly recommend everybody do, every one of our clients, everyone that we meet, is write down 3 wins that you had in that day. And it doesn't matter how small, but what that does, it starts to rewire your brain to start looking for wins, for progress in areas that you haven't seen before. And you wouldn't believe the difference that that small practice makes. Just looking. How did I? What did I do well today? Right? How often do you look for that in your life? Right? I did a I did a good job today. How often do you like give yourself credit or give yourself a pat on the back for anything? We're so harsh on ourselves. You're so harsh on yourself, and you don't need to be. Start becoming aware of that internal roommate, that person that's always in your head, always talking. What are they saying? Are they saying good things or are they saying bad things? And whether or not that dialogue changes is 100% up to you. This work comes down to you on a moment-by-moment basis and by creating systems and processes to help yourself stay consistent. By having that nightly routine where you write down those three wins, or by having that nightly routine about writing down those gratitudes. That's another practice that we have all of our clients do: writing down five gratitudes, three wins every single day. And that small practice will change your life because it's all about changing the way that you perceive yourself and your situation. So what I want to leave you with today is you're not a failure. You haven't failed. You haven't done anything wrong. You're in a lot of pain. You need to reframe. Frame your life. You need to reframe progress. What does progress look like for you? And you need to celebrate that progress each and every day. Look for it. Look for it right now. Where are you making progress in your life? Because you're making progress. You're just not crediting yourself for that progress. So look for the progress. Know that you're not broken. Know that you're not a failure. Know that you can do this. And with every little win that you see in your life. You're going to notice, hey, that's progress. And you're going to start to believe more and more that recovery from all this pain is possible, but it starts with the smallest of wins. So focus on those small wins and they will become bigger and bigger and bigger. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, hit that subscribe button and I will see you later.
