Welcome to episode 167. It's a mini episode with Dr. Guy Winch and we're going to talk about

failure and before we get to that I just want to read a couple of surveys and this is

from the shouldn't feel this way survey and it was filled out by a woman who calls herself

Ella. She's straight in her 20s raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment. What

do you like people to say about you at your funeral? I hope they say that I brought light

and love into a lot of people's lives and that I was a force for positive change in the

world both on an interpersonal and systemical level. Smarty pants. How does writing that

make you feel? It makes me feel scared that I will spew more negative energy into the world

than positive and scared that I will never achieve greatness and never achieve my dreams.

It also makes me feel overwhelmed. I feel like I haven't done enough so far in my life

and that I have wasted too much time and that I'm behind in the game, whatever the game

is. I call that feelings three steps behind the universe which is the feeling I have in

my chest every morning when I wake up continuing. I am also afraid that I will remain a volatile

person with intense mood swings and lows until my death and that I will die before I find

some kind of inner peace and acceptance. If you had a time machine how would you use it?

I would want to see dinosaurs or visit Paris in the early 1900s and swing by the salons

of great literary and artistic figures like Gertrude Stein. I'm supposed to feel happy

about turning 24 but I don't. I feel like a failure. I'm supposed to feel excited about

the prospect of climbing a mountain this summer but I don't. I feel totally out of shape

and unprepared and overwhelmed. I feel like this dream of mine is just going to turn into

another line on my list of failures. I'm supposed to feel okay about getting up and going

to work but I don't. I feel tired. I'm supposed to feel hopeful about the rest of my life but

...