I Failed Big Time… Here’s What I Do After I Mess Up

have made so many mistakes in my life. Big ones, small ones, public ones, quiet ones, and I believe that I've been able to build a dream life that I have built today, not in spite of them, but because of them. And so in today's podcast episode, I want to speak about failure, and not the kind that we fear or potentially we do, but how to actually use these failures to build confidence, clarity, and success. And the reason I want to speak about failure and making mistakes today is because last week I made three mistakes. And one of them was one that I have now truly learned a lesson from. But every single time I make a mistake in my life, I learned something from it. And if we want to go a little deep for a second before I share these three mistakes I made last week, something I've shared previously is that when I was a teenager, I got drunk with my friends, and I went to an after party after being in the city, and got so drunk that I blacked out and fell asleep in my guy friend's room. And I was so drunk that I could not control my body in mind. And some man came in, took off my clothes, and did things to me that were not comfortable, and that made me feel sick for a very long time afterwards. Now I for so long blamed myself, which it was a mistake because I wish I had never ever gotten myself to the point where I would black out and get so drunk that I could not defend myself in a situation like that. I also know it's not my fault that a guy comes in and does that to me, but I learned a big lesson on that day, which was do not get so drunk ever again that you are no longer in control or cannot think straight and help yourself out of a challenging situation. Another mistake I did, or less than I learned when I came to the states and I was pursuing modeling, in that area, since we're in the very uncomfortable body area, I didn't even think I was going to go here in this podcast episode, but why not? Because I'm thinking someone out there listening right now has made a mistake in the past, and it is still haunting them. And potentially with me opening up about things I've done in my past, you feel less alone in having mistakes like that that you wish you could take back. And hopefully it can shift the focus of you being hard on yourself for not standing up for yourself in that moment or for making the mistake that you did to actually seeing it as a beautiful lesson for you to never put yourself in a situation like that again, or at least do your best to not. When I first came to the states and I was pursuing modeling, I did a bunch of shoots with different photographers, and one of the photographers that I shot with, quite a few times, it was very like normal shoots. We were doing like some beach shoots where I was with the surfboard surfing like fully. I believe a couple of them were in a bikini, but it was never anything other than like friendly family vibes. We also did a shoot in a studio where it was like, you know, fashion type of photos. And then one day we had a studio shoot at his home where he had a wife and he had kids as well. They were not home, but like I had shot with this photographer so many times that I felt very comfortable with him. However, on this day, when we were shooting, he asked me to after maybe an hour of shooting, I was so comfortable, everything was great. He asked me to remove a piece of clothing that I didn't feel comfortable with, but I had built such trust in this photographer that I thought that, well, if he's asking me to do this and he's a father and a husband and, you know, he has his whole photography business together, then of course, there must not be anything wrong with me removing this piece of clothing. Don't worry, it was not my own order, but it was showing more of my body than I felt comfortable with. But in this moment, he made it seem so normal, and I had built this trust with him. And so I did it. And right after I left, I felt terrible about what had happened. I did not feel comfortable having done that, and I just felt like I had made the biggest mistake ever and was so ashamed and asked him to delete the photos a couple of days later. But he had made me sign a contract saying that he now owns the photos that we took together. So I wrote him multiple times, and he promised to delete them. But for years and years, years after, I felt so bad about having done that because it was so not like me, it was not something I felt comfortable with, and I just felt like I had made a massive mistake. But the lesson from that mistake was that never again would I allow for someone to talk me into doing something like that because it's not me, it's not the types of photos I want to be making. And I believe that that mistake made me show up with a lot more confidence moving forward. I can give you another example of one day I was supposed to shoot this in music video and turns out I was only dancer there. They asked me to dance on a table, and I just felt like this is not my vibe. I'm a dancer, and this was in Hollywood, and everything is fine, and in Hollywood, often as a dancer or a model, you get asked to do things that are a little outside of the normal. But in this situation, I just did not feel comfortable. So I called my dad. I stepped out like away, and I called my dad and he was like, yeah, you should go. And I literally just ran. I was like, nope, I'm not doing this. Videographer got really mad at me for it, but I just felt these vibes being off. And I believe that the reason I was able to just fully remove myself from that situation was because of the previous mistake I had made where I had not stood up for myself. I had just accepted doing whatever I was asked. And so mistakes like that can really help us show up better for the future. Now let's move back to what I actually wanted to speak with you about in today's podcast episode, which is being afraid of making mistakes and feeling and me having done exactly that. Let's start with the big girl mistake that I made this week. I had recently gone through my junk folder and realized that I hadn't gotten so many emails from people who wanted to come on my podcast. And in the past, whenever I've had reached out from emails from people who want to come on my podcast, typically it's their assistance that reach out to me. I've only ever had good experiences and people who've come on my show. It's been just such an incredible experience. And this time, it was the same. I just, however, had gotten maybe 15 emails and reached out back to all of them, not done too much research on each of them and invited someone on my show who was so kind and everything they spoke about was just great. And they did not mention anything about what I later came to find was associated with something that I don't want to be associated with or be promoting on my podcast. I have the podcast episode with them. It was such a great experience. The person was perfectly sweet and kind and I have nothing against them. However, the morning that the episode comes out a couple of hours after it having come out, I have received a voice note from one of my community members sharing. Hey, I just wanted to check in with you. I always listen to your podcast episodes and I respect what you do and I'm just curious is this person that you had on the show is associated with this and that. And as in what the person was promoting on the podcast was actually the work of this thing that I have all the respect for whatever people want to believe. I don't think there's any right or wrong thing to believe. But I also do have certain things that I feel okay with promoting and certain things that I just would like to not be involved in. And the person shared that the work that this person was promoting was associated with that. And I was like, well, I made a mistake. I did not do my research as to what it was that this thing on the deeper level was that we were talking about on the show. So I removed the episode, which I feel bad about the person who had come and, you know, put their time and effort into this. But I made the mistake of not doing my homework and not doing the research I needed to do to make sure that this episode was aligned with my values and what I feel like I can stand proud in promoting. And so the lesson I learned on this day this week when I realized that I had made this massive mistake that wasn't in alignment with what I want to be sharing on my channels was that, okay, from now on, Pernilla, you got to do your research. You may have so many things going on, but not doing your research on someone that both you and the person spends a lot of time on, you know, prepping and having this conversation and my editors helping me edit it and bring it out into the world. Like, you cannot do that. You may have a thousand things going on, but if that will make you make mistakes like that, you got to slow down. There's something you got to let go of. There's priorities that you got to put in place so that you do not repeat this mistake. Now, I'm not saying I won't ever have someone come on my podcast again that has completely different beliefs than me. I actually think that's a good thing. I think, you know, if we can have a debate on the different beliefs, as long as either of us are not trying to persuade someone to do things that would harm them in any way, then I think it's often good to have people on, have different beliefs and different ways of life. I think that's really inspiring and exciting, but I need to make sure that it's always aligned with my values. And so I learned my lesson, but this doesn't mean that I'm now afraid of bringing other people on my show. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop trying to get people that I don't know much about on my show. I just know that, okay, I can do a little bit more research so that I don't do this mistake again. Mistakes, when they turn out in this way, I don't believe that they're your identity. I just believe their data for you to move forward and us making mistakes like that doesn't mean that we're bad. It just means that we're in motion and constantly learning as we go. I've 100% sets made so many mistakes on this podcast and on my social channels and just in my life, in general, in my relationships and in my business. Oh my goodness, have I made a lot of mistakes? And another one that I made this week was, I mean, it's so silly. And some people I know would maybe feel like it was a big mistake than it is, but I do these types of mistakes all the time. And this is something I'm learning slow, but I think it's also because it's not something that I care as much about as other things, but this week I made a real on Instagram with egg versus egg type of reels that I make all the time. And the high volume, high protein, low calorie egg version, it was literally the eggs were dripping. And the reason for that was I had put in frozen cauliflower and egg whites and hadn't cooked it enough. So when I show this thing on the screen, the eggs were literally dripping. So the meal that was supposed to be the good meal was literally dripping on the table. And I had put it out anyway. I was like, I'm not going to reshoot this. I'm just going to put it out anyway. I don't even care. And in the comments, of course, people said, oh my gosh, grows the eggs are dripping. And what that helped me remind me is, yes, it's a little mistake. I should have either made sure to just like not have it be dripping. I should have cooked it longer or I should have let the cauliflower rice on freeze before making the real. But next time, I'll just make sure to do one of those things before I put it out. And so a little mistake like that, I see the comments. I'm like, oh, yeah, they're actually really right about that. And then I don't beat myself up over it. I say, okay, well, next time, I'm just going to do better. And I think if you're someone who wants to share more in social media, what has really helped for me as someone who's been posting almost every day for I feel like five years at this point. Now I don't post every day as strictly as I did once back when I got started when I really wanted to build that momentum, but I do post, I mean, almost every day. It's just, okay, well, we live and relearn and we move on for the next post. I don't spend hours and hours and hours to make each post perfection. I just do the best I can and move on to the next, especially with short from content. However, when it comes to long from content, I do want to make a bit more effort because I know that that long-term content for YouTube, for example, it can reach people for the next 10 years and still have momentum. So I do want to pay a little bit more attention on that. And that's also something I've learned from past mistakes of just putting YouTube videos out there without double checking. And then the mistakes just continuously being an issue. So I make mistakes, but I do my best to learn and grow from them. When it comes to these mistakes, not everything needs emotional energy. Some things we can look at it, see it as a data, not identify ourselves with it and then move on. It makes life so much easier. I was speaking with one of my one-on-one clients this week and she is pursuing a new career, a new venture that she wants to go in new direction. She wants to go in and something she wants to build. And I, we've been talking about different ideas that she can do. And one of the things we got her to do was create a sales pitch. It's something that she can offer different brands and then reach out to as many brands as possible. And since she hasn't gotten it yet, you know, it's very normal that we start to feel like, oh, maybe this is not for me and seeing it as a failure. But what I shed with her is like, when I want something and I'm determined to want it, I'm gonna keep reaching out to as many people as possible until I find the right person. So that means if I reach out to 999 people and I still have not found the person that said yes to me, I know that it's because I just have not found that right person from me yet. It's the same with the light bulb, right? Like when Edison was trying to come up with the light bulb, he spoke about it in a way where he didn't look at the thousand different attempts as failures. He looked at the thousand different ways that he had experimented with coming up with the light bulb as a thousand different ways that didn't work. And if he'd made those attempts mean that he wasn't smart enough, we would still be sitting in the dark unless someone else had come up with it through resilience and just perseverance. And so what I spoke with my client about was how we cannot see that feedback as failure. We just have to keep going at it. And every time something doesn't work, yes, maybe potentially we can look at, okay, what could I do 1% better for the next pitch for the next person I'm reaching out to until we find that perfect pitch and connect that with the perfect person that wants to work with us on this thing that we want to make happen in this world. The last thing I want to share is actually a small little failure, but it's something that I learned from. I have a bunch of one-on-one clients. We are a group that every week I speak with them individually and one of the things that I do with my clients is that we have created a habit tracker for each individual. And every week when we have our week to call, we check in with each other and I ask them if there's like what is the one thing that you could do this coming week that would help you make massive progress that would be the most needle moving thing that you could do in your business or in your life or in your fitness progress that you that you feel would really make you feel like you're making massive progress and feel really good throughout it. And a couple of things come up that we add to the habit tracker sometimes we take some things away that we've been focusing on on the previous weeks and this week I had my different sessions with the different individuals who I speak with and I write notes. And for this specific person I had written down I believe it was three new habits that this person needed to do or we needed to shift within her habit tracker and I had put that into her habit tracker and then I later see that she had made changes to one of the habits and I knew that that was the change we needed to make but I had done it a little differently and I could see that as a mistake because I knew that that was what we were supposed to put in there and I had put something else in there so I as a coach made a mistake. Now again I could see that and look at myself as being a failure when it comes to being a coach because I should have put it in in that perfect way that she put it in later but I could also see it as oh yes this is a great reminder first of all I am an exceptional coach I know that I know that I helped her so much throughout this conversation and I know she does not care one slight bit that she had to make that tweak in her habit tracker but what I could have also done is I could have seen that one little mistake mean that I am not a good enough coach right but instead I remind myself that I am a good coach that she probably does not care but also that that is such a great reminder that next time I want to make sure to double check the habits so that they're put in in a spot on way so again that little that's called it a little mistake help me improve for next time so there's such a big difference between how we speak to ourselves and how we see these mistakes you can a tell yourself this means I'm a bad coach or b you could tell yourself I need to make sure I double check the system having high standards for yourself I think is powerful it's beautiful but we cannot let those high standards turn into punishment when we don't always fully reach them one of them focuses on shame when we look at these mistakes as shameful and bad and the other one looks at them as learning lessons and helps us put systems into place beliefs into place actions into place ways of standing up for ourselves into place so that we can move on and become just one percent better every single time we make one of those mistakes and one of the things that I feel has been so powerful in my journey is no longer take these failures personally but rather take responsibility for them without attacking myself I am such a go getter and I go go go go and that means sometimes I move so fast that I forget to think and I believe that with that comes a lot of mistakes a lot of failures what also comes is a lot of success because if I'm not afraid of failing 99% of the time as in getting let's say 99 rejections for some project that I'm trying to bring into the world and I don't stop because of the 99 rejections when that one yes comes around that can be life changing for my life and for the things I'm trying to make happen in this world so these mistakes that I make on the way they just are here to tell me how to adjust and last year you may remember me talking about this in previous episodes I decided to see everything as a learning lesson and through seeing everything as a learning lesson whenever anything did not go to plan or I made a little mistake I took ownership of it and I've learned from it and I moved on with that 1% little bit of a better way of acting in alignment moving forward so if you're someone who has big goals for your life but you are so afraid of failing or making mistakes along the way I want you to ask yourself where are you making mistakes mean that you are not good enough and how could you instead choose to see it as data and a perfect way for you to know how to make adjustments moving forward and the second question I want to ask you is really powerful and I hope you decide to sit with it for a moment what goal are you currently avoiding because you are afraid of looking stupid first if you can allow yourself to look stupid oh my goodness the amount of times I have looked so stupid on my social media posts and learned from it I cannot even recall how many times that has been but it has been a lot and I am grateful for every single one of them because I've learned so much on the journey of just moving forward with action and little adjustments and tweaks as I go if you're making mistakes right now I believe that's a good sign I believe it means that you're growing and you're in the midst of building something really big and if you've held yourself back from moving forward towards the dream I hope that this episode reminded you that every single one of us makes mistakes some are bigger some are smaller and sometimes I could do better at paying a little bit more attention which I think I have grown within and gotten better at and I will continue to do that as I move forward I want to be someone that takes bold action and does not allow fear to stop her and I am hoping that you're wanting to join me in that because this is called the challenger norm podcast and we like to challenge our norm and grow I know that otherwise you wouldn't be here with me at the end of this episode and if you want to bring a friend with you along the journey please share this episode with someone who you think good find it useful subscribe so that you never miss another episode and as always remember in order for you to grow you have to challenge your norm