361: Daring to Fail: Betting on yourself at midlife and beyond.

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now as she breaks down the fairy tale health story you have been chasing all of your life into sensible action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the grace and grit podcast. This is your host, Courtney Townley, as always, I’m delighted you’re here. I’m really grateful that you decided to put this podcast in your ears of all the podcasts you could choose from, and today we are going to talk about daring to fail, which another way of saying that is betting on yourself at midlife and beyond.

Courtney Townley 0:49
And before we go there, I do want to give you a little disclaimer. I may sound a little raspy in this voice in this episode today. I recently had a very minor surgery. It’s all went well. I’m perfectly fine, but the tube that they put down my throat definitely has irritated my throat, so if you hear me maybe cough a little or need a sip of water, that is why

Courtney Townley 1:14
So, into this conversation of daring to fail. You know the things that my clients have shared with me that are on their hearts to create, never cease to amaze me and inspire me. And there’s a lot of different things that my clients have on their heart. Some of them want to travel the world. They want to see new places. They might even want to move to a new place that takes risk. I have clients who want to shift careers, or possibly even end their career, that too takes risk. I have clients who are really committed to deepening relationships in certain areas that could be with themselves, but it could be with food, with exercise, with their career, with their loved ones, with a coworker. I have clients who want to, quite literally, create something, a business, artwork, a book, a podcast.

Courtney Townley 2:17
I have a lot of clients who want to advocate for causes that they deeply care about and so many other things. In other words, my clients still have a lot of work that they are calling themselves into in the second half of their life. They still have life in them, a lot of life in them, and they have a lot of things that they want to create and express and try on, and their biggest barrier to actually doing any of those things is themselves. And here’s why, at midlife, we have had, by midlife, I should say we have had a lot of opportunities to develop self narrative that is not serving us. So these are unuseful limiting beliefs. We have limiting beliefs around about ourselves, about what’s possible, about what we can create. And by midlife, we had we have also developed a lot of habits that allow us to conveniently avoid discomfort, rather than leaning into it.

Courtney Townley 3:45
And I know everyone listening to this does not need me to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. You will never change your life, improve your life, experience new things in your life, if you aren’t willing to risk failure. So in this episode of the grace and grit podcast today, I’d like to challenge you to consider things in your life that are worth failing for, regardless of your age. And I also want to talk about how do we actually do that? Start pursuing things that are worth failing for in a way that feels less intimidating, because we are making it incredibly hard. It’s always going to be hard, but we don’t necessarily need to suffer in the hardship if we take responsibility where we can, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today in a second. In this episode.

Courtney Townley 4:44
I do also want to say that if this episode helps you in some way, it lands for you in some way, please consider sharing it with other women in your life who might benefit in the same way. Because I in my personal life and my professional life, I. Do not know a woman who isn’t harboring something of importance to them that they have yet to pursue. We all have something, and the world needs that something, hiding it away and not pursuing it is not helping anybody. So I want to share a little story with you before we get into the nuts and bolts of this. Just kind of about where I am right now in my career, because it’s so relevant to this topic. If you’re if you subscribe to my newsletter, you have probably heard this already. Certainly, if you’re a Rumble and Rise member, you have already heard this. But I know a lot of podcast listeners probably haven’t, and that is this, I am in the process of writing a book.

Courtney Townley 5:43
About 10 days ago, I signed a contract with a publisher, so it is very real, like this is really happening, and my book is tentatively, tentatively going to be out into the world by the end of next summer, 2025 now this project has been on my heart for well over a decade, and for the past few years, I have been dipping my toe into this commitment, not fully committed. I was just a one toe Dipper. And I’m sure you too have had the experience of something in your life that you want to pursue, but you don’t fully commit to it. That’s what I mean by the one toe dip. But in order to see this thing across the finish line, to actually do the work that will bring it into fruition, I’m going to have to get completely in the pool and start swimming. One of the analogies I often use with my community is, look, you can’t learn how to swim without getting wet, right? We all had to be willing to get fully in the pool to learn how to swim. I can’t ever learn how to write a book if I’m not willing to actually get in the pool with the book writing process if I’m not committed to getting fully wet.

Courtney Townley 7:06
My one toe dip in this process has looked like a lot of things. It’s looked like, quite frankly, a lot of hiding, and that hiding has shown up by reading a lot of books about writing, about publishing, about marketing. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts with the same subjects. I’ve talked to a lot of published authors. I have bought courses for first time authors. I have hired a book proposal coach, and I have also hired a book writing coach, and while all these things have definitely contributed to me better understanding what I am getting myself into and even helping to teach me some processes so I can actually make the book writing process a little bit easier. None of the things I just mentioned are actually going to make me a published author. I have to sit down and write the freaking book, which I will say the book is about 50% done.

Courtney Townley 8:13
So there is some of that work already done, but that being said for me to take this book to where I would love it to be, there is a lot of work ahead of me, and I have to constantly remind myself that Courtney, there’s always going to be another book to read on the subject. There will always be another podcast you could listen to on the subject. There will always be the opportunity to hire more professionals, or sign up for more programs to learn more about book writing, there will always be an option to indulge in all the reasons why this is a terrible idea. That is all very true, so I can spend the next 10 years doing those things, or I could just get to really committed work of finishing this book. So I had to arrive at a point where I decided and just deeply hard, like I I committed in the biggest way, to pursue something worth failing for this book is something worth failing for for me, I don’t know that it’s going to sell. I don’t know that anyone’s going to want to read it. I don’t know if I’ll enjoy the process. I don’t know any of that. But when I consider being at the end of my life and hopefully having an opportunity to kind of look back on it. Which discomfort am I going to feel more at peace with, the discomfort that comes from never betting on myself and taking the risk to write the book, or taking the risk to write. Book, even if it doesn’t turn out the way I expect it to. And for me, it’s absolutely that second option. I will not be at peace for not pursuing something that has been on my heart for so long, because then I will be playing this I could have, what would have, what would have been different if I would have in my later years, and that is not a game I want to play. So pursuing this book as something worth failing for is really that full, full body submersion into the pool.

Courtney Townley 9:10
So now I want to ask you, dear listener, what is that thing for you?

Courtney Townley 10:42
What do you need to get fully in the pool for? What is worth failing for? What are you willing to be daring enough to risk failure for?

Courtney Townley 10:59
I’ll tell you a few of the things that my clients have shared as an answer to that question. When I ask them, What is worth failing for? These are the types of things I often hear I want to improve a relationship now. That relationship could be with themselves. It could be with their body. It could be with their career, a loved one with food, with exercise. I coached on all kinds of relationship mending.

Courtney Townley 11:24
Some of my clients will say that they what’s what’s worth failing for is learning to be more lighthearted, learning to have more fun, looking for more joy in life. It’s worth pursuing, and you’re going to have days where you’re probably not so good at it. I have clients who want to achieve athletic endeavors. Maybe they want to climb a mountain. I can think of a particular client right now who one of the things that was with her, her risking failure for was going to a foreign country to be in a ski race. I’ve had clients who want to run a marathon for the first time. Or I’ve had clients who’ve been away from running for decades and then all of a sudden want to get back into it, because it’s been on their heart for so long. I have clients who are ending careers, changing careers, retiring. I have clients who are going back to school in their 50s because they have decided hard that this is something worth failing for.

Courtney Townley 12:30
And I want to make it clear when I say worth failing for, I’m not saying you’re going to fail right, like you’re everyone can define failure differently, but what I’m saying is you have to be willing to get messy and screw up and make a lot of mistakes in order to bring whatever your passions are into fruition. And here’s why it’s so important to consider what is worth. Worth failing for number one clarity is the mother of discipline. Without clarity about what you truly want to do without censoring yourself, if you don’t get clear on that, you’re forever more going to be a one toe Dipper, you’re going to try a bunch of things on, and you’re never really going to fully commit to anything. It’s also important to recognize the things in your life worth taking risk for, because you’re going to have bad days, you’re going to have hard days, like I said, you’re going to have messy days. And when I remind myself that this is something worth rumbling for, I call that right fighting the good fight. That’s what it is I’m fighting the good fight.

Courtney Townley 13:48
The good fight is not giving up in the presence of a hard day. It’s not quitting on myself just because it didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to. So I call this learning how to fail. Well, I think it is honestly one of the skill sets that if more people learned how to fail well, we would see so many people living more fulfilled lives failing well just means that you don’t make it mean things that hurt failing well means you dust yourself off, you Learn from your mistakes, and you keep going, you extend yourself a lot of grace, a lot of compassion, a lot of kindness, and you also apply discipline to get back to work. It’s not either or, it’s both, and it’s also important to know the things in your life that are worth taking risk for, because your brain will always try to convince you that it’s too dangerous to pursue these things. That’s what the brain does the amygdala especially, it’s our primal brain, and it loves to perceive everything as a threat. So expect when you take a risk. Your brain is going to go to work right away, trying to convince you why this is a horrible idea, why you might die if you pursue this thing.

Courtney Townley 15:09
But lucky for us, we also have those prefrontal cortexes, right, those executive centers that allow us to parent that part of our brain that’s trying to talk it out of us, the prefrontal cortex allows you to talk yourself into it. It gets to say you coach yourself. This is what self coaching looks like. Hey, Courtney, I know this is scary. I know you’ve never done it before. I also know you’re not going to die. If this doesn’t work out the way you planned, you’re gonna have to feel some uncomfortable things, but you’re not going to die.

Courtney Townley 15:43
And the other reason, I think it’s really important to recognize where we are not taking risk in areas that are important to us is because these areas, these risks are if you lean into them, if you apply bravery and start doing the work around those things, that’s nutrition for self trust and self confidence. And when you have more self trust and self confidence, your life continues to expand, and you truly are in a position to start making the second half of your life the better half.

Courtney Townley 16:16
There’s that quote that says, up until 40, it’s all just research. I love that quote, because I think it’s so true. You you’ve learned so much about yourself by midlife, so much, and so you get to use that Intel to navigate forward more wisely. Yes, you still have to take risks. Yes, failure will always be a possibility, but you’ve learned a lot.

Courtney Townley 16:42
Okay, so let me talk quickly through a few things that I think could really help you with, learning to dare to fail or pursuing things that are worth failing for number one, reference past evidence. Every single person listening to the show today has past evidence of things that they have pursued that were worth failing for. Maybe it was asking someone out on a date, maybe it was saying yes to a proposal, maybe it was taking a job, maybe it was committing to some kind of craft or art that you improved over years. All of those things require you risking failure.

Courtney Townley 17:24
You had to be willing to have a bad day and get back up and still keep moving forward, because this thing was so important to you, so call upon that past reference. Did you move to a new place and make it work. Did you pursue some higher level of education, that you graduated with some kind of degree? Did you were you in a really difficult relationship, that the two of you actually did the work to mend it? These are all examples of things worth failing for, and you have that evidence, you just need to call on it. What in my lifetime have I pursued and I had to be really brave in order to pursue it. Those are things worth failing for.

Courtney Townley 18:16
Another thing that may help is kind of what I mentioned to you earlier, which are you going to regret more at the end of your life, never having tried or trying, even if it doesn’t work out the way you expected it to? That’s a very powerful question. And I can’t tell you the number of times my husband in the past few months has it has reminded me of that fact, because I have been like, oh my gosh, I think I just made the biggest mistake in my life. I’m freaking out my you know, my amygdala was just totally taking over. And he’s like, Babe, you know, you want to write this book. You’ve been talking about this book for years, and what are you going to regret more? And every time he asks me that question, I just calm down because I know what I would regret more, which is not writing it another helpful thing when you are in the pursuit of things worth failing for, pre decide what you’re going to make failure mean, because you can make failure mean that it’s fatal and final, or you could make mistakes and barriers and some perceived failures As education for how to do better moving forward.

Courtney Townley 19:24
So how you talk to yourself and the meaning that you put on failure is really important to consider before you get in the pool, because if you don’t decide ahead of time, you’re going to be in the thick of it, and if you have a habit of getting up, giving up really easily, you’re just going to do the same thing again, because you haven’t pre decided how you’re going to make this work. Definitely paying attention to your self narrative is crucial. Because if you are talking to yourself in a way that’s talking you out of whatever you want to pursue, well you’re not going to pursue the thing, right? Thoughts are always those self. Fulfilling prophecies. So you better start paying attention to what’s playing in your head when you keep trying to pursue something, but as soon as it gets hard, you just retreat. What’s the dialog that’s happening there? And we need to change that tape.

Courtney Townley 20:15
I have a PDF that may be useful to you, that we’re going to you can just register for for free. If you go to graceandgrit.com/selftalk, you can register for a PDF that really gives you some very simple but powerful tools for starting to shift your own self narrative. So if that’s something, again, that seems like it would be helpful to you, graceandgrit.com/selftalk, and we’ll send it right to your inbox.

Courtney Townley 20:42
A couple other things I want to share. These you’ve heard me talk about on the show before, but they’re so important. When you are in the pool with something worth failing, for your brain will often go to what if? What if I fail? What if this sucks? What if I lose a ton of money? What if I don’t have a home? What if I like fill in the what if we go to the what if scenarios that really hurt us, and they are basically ways of talking ourselves out of doing the work. So this is where I always recommend you play the even if game, even if I lose money, even if this doesn’t work out the way that I planned, even if this person ends up exiting my life, fill in those statements. What will you do even if?

Courtney Townley 21:37
And here’s why this is so powerful when we even if our scenarios, it shows us very quickly what we would do. We prove to ourselves that we could just make another decision. We would figure it out. And I’m not saying you wouldn’t be disappointed, and you might not experience some grief, you will, and none of that’s a bad thing. But to not live in that spin cycle, you are definitely going to have to pay close attention to your self narrative. And I have found, for so many people, that just that simple phrase of even if change from what if to even if. And I will also say this, there’s two ways to play the what if game. You can play the game of what if, right? What if I lose my money? What if I gain a bunch of weight? What if this isn’t playing out, look, play out the way I wanted it to. What if this person does this thing? But you can also change the energy with which you are asking those questions.

Courtney Townley 22:40
Here’s a concrete example. So I could use the phrase, I’ve never written a book, and I could use that phrase to really scare me, because it’s true, I’ve never written a book, and I can focus on that fact in a way that terrifies me and doesn’t at all allow me to lean into writing the book, but I can also say that statement with completely different energy. I have never written a book like that. Could also be really exciting. I love learning new skills, and so yeah, I’ve never written a book before, which means there’s so much opportunity ahead of me to learn and grow and expand who I am as a person. So it’s the exact same statement, but I’m putting a different energy behind it. Another thing that I think is worth considering when you set a lofty goal, or there’s something on your heart that you want to pursue, but it’s feeling scary, instead of focusing on the end game of how, like you’re going to get there. Like this book for me is going to be out late next summer, that’s not what I’m focusing on right now. What I’m focusing on right now is who I need to be every single day to get this book published by the end of next summer. So who am I becoming along the way of pursuing this thing? That’s the magic. It’s not the thing in the end, that’s just a byproduct of who I had to become.

Courtney Townley 24:17
The real gift is in all the skills and character qualities I get to develop in order to actually put something like that out into the world. And some of my longtime community members are very used to me talking about this concept of an impossible goal, setting a goal, or having a vision for your life that you have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get there, necessarily, like you don’t know all the steps you’re going to have to take in order to create this outcome. But if we reverse engineer it and just focus on what we need to do today to become the type of woman who would actually have what that vision is, that’s how we get there. And once we get there, and we look. Back in the rear view mirror, we can actually see like, oh, that’s what I did there, right? I’ve said this before on the show, but there’s a very, there’s a very, I think, thing distinct reason why we can’t see the whole staircase.

Courtney Townley 25:15
And the reason we can’t see the whole staircase is because it would be terrifying, like if I knew what what I had to do to create an online business and a successful podcast and a membership community. If I knew at the very beginning what it was going to take, I don’t know if I would have done it. So I just went on this faith and commitment that these were things worth failing for, and they really were. Because while I think they’re all great products, who I had to become to create those things is really the win in all of it. So who will you need to become in order to actually pursue the things on your heart and be willing to fail for them? Two last things I want to give you as pointers that I think could really help really help is find community. Insert yourself in a community that can help support you in continuing with the risk.

Courtney Townley 26:17
So this could be a community that is specific to the thing you’re trying to create so or let’s just say, for example, let’s say you’re getting a divorce, right? And you’ve never traveled that those waters before, and it feels very scary. There are a lot of online communities with divorcees or people going through that process. They can share rumbles and rises that they have learned along the way, and that can be immensely powerful. Same with my book, right? I’ve been inserting myself in all kinds of spaces and places because I need to normalize the conversation. It helps me show up to do my writing when I know there’s people rumbling right alongside of me, and then the final thing I’ll say here is that the nervous system can only handle so much change at once, and when we are starting to take action towards things worth failing for, if we are committing to way too much out of the gate, we’re just going to further stress out our brain. And a stressed out brain is going to think that’s danger, and it’s going to basically paralyze you instead of propel you forward. And so we want to start with small things. So I mentioned that one toe dip earlier. The one toe dip is necessary, and then you do the ankle dip, and then you do the knee dip, and then you start getting into the pool, and you get up to your waist, and then you decide to, like, get up to chest height testing, you know, your comfort in the depths of the waters. And eventually you dunk your head, and eventually you swim. And if we could kind of do that same thing with the things on our heart, they wouldn’t be so scary.

Courtney Townley 28:03
So maybe it’s making a few phone calls, maybe it’s signing up for a program. Maybe it is, you know, trying to find a mentor or a community of people that are already doing the thing that you want to create. So baby steps, small steps, are definitely your friend, but they lead to bigger steps. You will eventually run, you will eventually swim, but we can’t necessarily start there, so I hope this was helpful. My voice actually did way better than I thought it was going to. So that’s a win if you do want that powerful self talk document that I mentioned in this episode today, once again, it’s graceandgrit.com/selftalk, and we’ll just shoot it right into your inbox. I hope it was helpful. I hope there was a little glimmer of gold somewhere in here for you. Thank you again for listening today, and whatever you deem is worth failing for just know that I’m cheering you on that I it just excites me to no end when I see women pursuing things that have been on their hearts for a long time, and maybe it’s time for you, the listener, to start getting into the pool deeper than you have been. All right, I’ll see you soon. Take care. Bye.

Courtney Townley 29:25
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story, and it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort, and with a little grace and grit, anything is possible you.