Why Your Low Failure Tolerance Is Keeping You Stuck (And How to Fix It)

Do you often feel like you want to get something accomplished and have all the right intentions, but at the end of the day, you fall short and don't know why? You might be struggling with low failure tolerance – and it's keeping you stuck.

What Is Failure Tolerance?

Failure tolerance is your willingness to fail, get feedback, and readjust without making it mean something's wrong with you. It's the difference between giving up after one bad attempt and saying, "Huh, what about that didn't quite meet the expectation? What can I do better next time?"

My Instagram Failure Story (And What It Taught Me)

Last year, I invested in an Instagram coach because I wanted to reach more people. But I came to her saying, "I'm terrible at Instagram. I don't know what I'm doing. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it."

I showed up every week, watched all the modules multiple times, even paid $800 for a one-on-one call. For an entire year, I kept failing and getting more frustrated. I was bringing "Diet Dara" – the needy, resentful version who gave away all her power and said "I'm not smart enough."

But that wasn't the version of me who lost 50 pounds and kept it off for five years. That Dara was willing to fail, get feedback from the scale, and tweak what wasn't working.

You Already Have High Failure Tolerance (You Just Don't Realize It)

Think about quilting. When you try a new pattern, you're willing to:

• Buy more fabric if you forgot to starch
• Try different binding techniques until one works
• Practice free motion quilting with different feet and gloves

Or baking – if you tasted the most delicious dessert in France, you'd be willing to fail and readjust until you recreated it perfectly.

You already know how to do this.

The Key: Don't Make Failure Personal

The secret is not making failure mean anything about you. It's not "I'm a failure" – it's "this is a human thing." We have to fail and learn from our failures to get better.

In order to be really good at something, you have to be really good at failing at it first.

Why Low Failure Tolerance Keeps You Floating

My mentor Jody Moore gave me this analogy: Imagine you're floating in the ocean. You can either let the currents take you wherever (that's low failure tolerance), or you can get in the rowboat and decide your direction.

When you row your boat, there will be opposition. People might say, "When you're successful this way, it makes me feel uncomfortable." You can say, "Yeah, I can see that, but I'm rowing my boat over here."

As humans, we're meant to evolve and grow – that's our healthy state. If we don't give ourselves challenges, our brain makes up pretend problems (like obsessing over the church's old appliances).

Building Your Failure Tolerance for Weight Loss

Inside my membership, women have to be willing to go through a certain amount of failure before success. It's part of the package. My objective is helping women understand that failure is to be celebrated.

Failure is us being willing to try something, get feedback, and readjust.

Just like I can't walk around with you all day telling you what to eat, when your husband brings home Ben and Jerry's at 10 PM, you're the one who has to make the choice.

Your Next Step: Get in the Rowboat

If you've been listening to podcasts thinking "this makes sense" but not taking action, your life is just going to be like a treadmill. Walking and listening but not getting anywhere.

To live the healthy life you want, you have to get in the rowboat (or off the treadmill) and decide your direction. There's going to be discomfort, and the more tolerance you have for that discomfort, the more you're able to fail and be successful.

Because on the other side of failure is success.

Ready to build your failure tolerance and stop floating in the ocean? Book a call with me. Let me help you see what's really stopping you from creating the results you want.

Ready to develop failure tolerance for your weight loss journey? Book a call with me to find out how to start!

Listen to this podcast episode or watch it on my YouTube channel