Why It’s Good to Fail
The word failure has become something we dread. It’s a bad word that we avoid at all costs. But instead of avoiding it, what if we could see it as a stepping stone toward where you ultimately want to go?
What is failure? It is not achieving, meeting, or exceeding a preconceived idea or milestone. It is a perception we have created for ourselves that is rooted in personal and social influences and experiences. It can range from simple to complex: forgetting to get a car wash or being late for a dinner; not getting a second round interview when you already have a job or not getting a second round interview when you’ve been out of a job for a year. These feel different as we assign more value to them. What often comes along with it is a sense of personal failure beyond just the event or milestone in question. It can be defeating and paralyzing; it can be all-encompassing and a reason to mull over all the steps you should or should not have done to have changed the outcome to something more desirable.
However, failure is an inevitable part of life. Life does not exist without it! We wouldn’t be able to enjoy success or achievements without having the duality of the opposite. This polarity is present in all aspects of life: dark and light, positive and negative, high and low, good and bad, joy and sadness.
The key to reducing the fear of failure is to remove the power we assign to it. It is redefining your meaning of failure away from a negative into a neutral influence. If we can step into opportunities and daily life alike with an acceptance of having a variety of outcomes, the power of failure gets reduced. Try these steps next time you feel a sense of failure:
-Embrace your feelings surrounding a moment of failure. Sit with your feelings and let them wash over you like a wave coming onto the beach. It crashes then subsides, allowing you to move forward. Identify feelings of disappointment, anger, frustration, sadness, overwhelm, or others that come along with failure.
-In this moment, remind yourself that YOU are not a failure, you are only contemplating the moment or milestone in question.
-Accept the feeling of failure as a presence and “what is” in the moment. In this case, “what is” is simply a feeling you are experiencing, not a definition of you.
-What has happened has already occurred. Channel your energy away from circling around past events or dwelling on a moment you wish you could change. Engage your present self by acknowledging that you cannot change the past, only how you preserve your inner self and choose to embrace what is your current state.
-Write out your feelings. Pour them out onto a page or screen. Then make a T chart of things you can control and things you cannot control in the present moment. Focus your energy on the column of things within your control and accept and let go of the things you cannot control.
Failure is an outcome, not a death sentence. It adds richness to our lives and knowledge to our experiences. Failure shapes us but does not define us. Your perception and ultimate acceptance of the present moment is what living is all about. Share and experience failure with an eye for what it can teach, rather that what it can squash.