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In life, you either win, or you lose, so if you’re not a winner, then you’re a loser. That is the belief I first started to develop as a teenager. Anytime I failed, I believed it was because I wasn’t good enough — I saw myself as a failure.
I felt that way because society values men by how successful we become. I believed that if I wasn’t the “perfect guy” (read: a winner), then I was a failure. The problem with that thinking is that it is all rooted in a myth. I wasn’t a failure. I was a Good Man! A Good Man who had struggles and problems just like every other guy.
Another problem with believing that I was a failure is that it started to affect how I lived my life. When I believed that I was a failure, I didn’t approach women because I felt I wasn’t perfect, and even if I did, I believed she wouldn’t stay with me long-term because I didn’t work the right job. Another belief was that I couldn’t be successful because I didn’t have what it takes to become successful.
All three of those assumptions I made about women, career choices, and successful men weren’t true.
In this article, I want to share three lessons I learned about the myths I use to believe after finally shedding the label of “failure” and use them to explain why I choose to write for the Good Men Project.
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Myth: You Have To Be Perfect For Women To Notice You
Lesson: I use to believe that I had to be the perfect man to get a woman. However, that isn’t true. While I’m sure that at some point in their lives most women have dreamed of what their perfect man would be like, in reality, they are more realistic in deciding who to date and marry.
After surveying 2,000 women, a study by Remington found that most women don’t even believe Mr. Perfect exists. Men don’t have to be perfect; we just need to be Good Men. The most important quality for men to have, according to the women in the Remington study, was a good personality. I can tell you from personal experience, that feeling like a failure is not a personality that most women (or even your guy friends and family) find attractive.
Once I stopped seeing myself as a failure, I started asking women out more. Despite me not being perfect, they still went out with me.
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Myth Two: You have to work in a career that impresses women.
Lesson: I’m pretty sure at some point most men have come across an article that lists the jobs that women would love a man to have— such as a Doctor, Engineer, or Architect. If you think you’re a failure, reading that kind of list will make you feel horrible. You’ll start to tell yourself that you have no chance with women because you don’t have the right career.
However, ever since I stopped labeling myself a “failure,” I’ve come to realize that you don’t have to have one of those jobs to impress women. Just aim for a career where you have a skill, or you’re creative, or a career that serves others (i.e., the military) and as long as you can provide yourself a stable living, most women will be impressed. When I started going on dates, none of the women cared that I didn’t have a job that appeared on some top ten list.
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Myth Three: Everybody can’t become successful.
Lesson: Shedding the label of failure helped me put to rest the belief that I couldn’t be successful like all those amazing guys I see on TV. You know the type, the tall, ridiculously handsome, and in great shape guys.
Before I shed the failure label, my belief was that those types of guys were born predisposed to having talents that guys such as myself lacked. Now I know that things like that are just one small piece of the puzzle that makes them successful. In fact, Heidi Grant of the Harvard Business School found after researching the achievements of successful people that “successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.”
After I read Heidi Grant’s findings, I decided to apply some of what she discovered in my life. I set specific goals (I want to go back to school), seized the moment (immediately started applying to school I was qualified for), and became a realistic optimist (realized that going back to school was gonna take time).
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Why I Write
My purpose for writing all this is to say I was never a failure, and neither is anyone reading this now that feels like one. It was all a lie.
I learned that lesson via the first Good Men Project article I ever read. In that article, You Are Not A Loser, by Noah Brand, he explained why avoiding labels like “failure” or in his case “loser” is key to not feeling like one.
It was also in that article that I learned of Tom Matlack’s story and the goal of the Good Men Project. I was inspired by Tom because he was this incredibly successful man (by worldly standards), and he had the same internal struggles I had —he felt inadequate.
As time went by I kept reading articles the Good Men Project published. Eventually, I found myself thinking that there was something quite calming about knowing that many had come to this website for the same reason I did because when they looked at their personal lives, they related to that feeling of personal failure that both Tom Matlack and I had.
When I felt like a failure, I shared that feeling with everyone who came to this site. For that reason and Tom’s story, I chose to write because I hope through sharing my struggles that I can help someone reading my work the same way other articles on this site helped me.
The key to believing that I wasn’t a failure, was avoiding the label altogether. Once I began to shrug off that belief that I was a failure, I begin to notice that I had a lot going for myself in life. I had a desire to change. I had the opportunity to go back to school. I had a great community of friends and a loving family.
Now I’ve gone on dates and went back to school (and I’m almost finished with my second degree). I wouldn’t have done any of those things had I not shed that label of failure, and I owe the decision to shed that label from the advice I received from the very first article I read on the Good Men Project.
Someone might be reading this article now thinking to themselves, “but you don’t understand what I’m struggling with right now,” you are correct, I don’t know.
What I do know is that you only fail when you quit trying, and by you taking the time to read this article, that means you haven’t stopped trying.
I’m not a failure and neither or you! We are both Good Men! Good Men who have struggles and problems. Together we come to this site to share our stories and offer advice for overcoming and coping with said problems.
I still have areas of my life that I need to work on such as my confidence (see my previous articles, Developing Your Confidence Part 1 and Part II).
In the past, I would have told myself that I couldn’t become confident. However, ever since I shed that label, I no longer believe that. As a matter of fact, I want to share some of the success I’ve had with you. I said I wanted to learn front-end web design and set goals to do that. Below you will find that I’m already close to finishing that goal.
My need to improve my confidence wasn’t a sign that I was a failure, it was just a problem that I needed to work on overcoming.
(Note: My full name is Terrence Darnell Donerson in case your wondering why it says Terrence and not Darnell).
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A version of this post was published on BlogWithDarnell and is republished with the author’s permission.
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Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
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