When it comes to do it yourself projects, I hear myself say “I can’t do that” or “I don’t know how” and then I give up and walk away. That is the equivalent of sitting on the couch and that is no place to be. I recently wrote about my attempts to try new things and not let my fear of failure prevent me from experiencing success. Recently I tackled changing fuses in my car, fixing a cabinet door and repairing a rust spot on my car. Over the last few weeks, I have experienced plenty of failure on the road to some success and I am kind of proud of myself. Yeah, me!
Update on my readiness to fail!
I successfully changed two fuses in my car and now have working outlets to charge my phone, plug in my cooler and listen to my podcasts. It involved not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 attempts.
Attempt 1, involved finding the fuse box itself. I think this actually took two trips to the car but I will include it as one attempt. I finally found the answer on the internet as someone else had the same problem. I literally needed to kneel in front of the drivers seat and put my head on the floor mat to look up. Who the heck designs these things? Then I gave up because I couldn’t get the damn cover off.
Attempt 2 – Got the cover off and located the fuses that needed to be replaced. I figured out what I needed to buy and walked away.
Attempt 3 -Those damn fuses were so tiny and the tool that was supposed to help me remove them didn’t actually work on that type of fuse. I was so frustrated, I walked away.
Attempt -4 – Thank goodness for needle nose plyers! It took about 5 minutes to get those tiny little fuses removed and replaced!
By the time I experienced success, I was kind of used to failure and I was comfortable with that. I can charge my phone and plug in my cooler again! Total cost was less than $5.00, life is good!
My kitchen cabinet door now hangs from the cabinet again instead of sitting on the floor! This was a sort of success as it still sticks and is in danger of coming off but I will take it. I had to figure out the correct hinge as it is not common. I have never ever spent time looking at hinges in my life. The one I needed was called a Pivot Hinge and none of the local stores carried it. One of the hinges was missing and the other would not come off due to a seriously stripped screw. My friend had the tool to remove a stripped screw but it refused to cooperate! It now hangs with only 3 out of 4 screws! But it hangs! Total cost $12.50.
The last project I am currently attempting is to sand and paint a rust spot on my car. I have purchased the supplies, sanded, neutralized the rust and primed multiple times. It doesn’t look great as it was pretty bubbled to start with but it is an improvement. The neutralizer and primer were spray paint – you should have seen how I covered the rest of the car to keep it from getting paint on it. I still need to paint (luckily not spray) but it is pouring outside! I am positive that when I finish this project, it will look better than before and I will have stopped the spread of rust. I call that success! Total cost $25.00.
Too many of us let the fear of failure prevent us from even trying new things. I don’t want to live like that any more. Failure is not a bad thing, it is a really good thing. If we don’t fail, we don’t get better at anything, we don’t learn anything. I was one of those kids in school who never raised her hand unless I was positive I had the right answer. I didn’t speak up, I didn’t take risks and I didn’t learn things on my own.
The projects I repeatedly failed at over the last couple of months are not big things. For some of you, they are even simple. But for me, they were scary, they were challenging and in the past, I would not have tried to fix them myself. I am happy for my failures because they led to my success! I also saved some cash and that is always good in my book.
What are you ready to fail at? What are you ready to let your kids fail at? I am learning to be comfortable with failing and celebrating my attempts, not just my success. This is proving to be a new way to choose happiness. Yeah me!
Lake Girl
Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay