Why failing never felt so good.
Hate failing? Trying to get comfortable with it? Read on.
I’ve recently had a bit of a revelation.
In my world, you hear phrases like "there is no failure, only feedback" banded around a lot. But despite knowing 'intellectually' that failure was ok, it still felt icky to me.
Recently however, in amongst a MASSIVE parenting failure, I had a bit of a new experience.
After a long, drawn out evening of trying to get a very tired toddler to bed, I sat down on the sofa and admitted to myself that the way I handled it hadn’t worked. In fact, it had been a downright failure.
I even ended up saying the words out loud to myself "well that failed didn't it." And you know what? It felt GREAT. Hearing myself say that actually brought a smile to my face, and instead of continuing to feel like ‘a terrible parent’... I felt this huge sense of release. That it was ok to have failed.
I’ve reflected on why admitting to myself that I'd failed made me feel better, and I've come up with three thoughts. I’m putting them down here in case they’re helpful for anyone else, but I’d also love to know what you think. How do you feel about failing?
Thought 1:
Make failure specific. Using phrases like “it’s all going wrong”, or “nothing seems to work” paint this picture that my whole world is failing. That's not true. When I stop generalising, I realise that 'failure' is not a trend, it is situation specific e.g. “I failed to win that piece of business” vs. “My business is failing”.
-> This takes some of the emotion out, and enables me to objectively look at what didn’t work and get curious about why.
Thought 2:
Stop making failure about me. Failure isn’t my identity. I am not a failure… I just failed at a particulate activity. e.g. “I had a parenting failure today” vs. “I’m a failure at parenting”. Make failure about the THING that failed.
-> This stops those negative stories I sometimes tell myself about who I am, and instead acknowledges that something didn’t work, and wipes the slate clean. It gives me a chance to try again tomorrow.
Thought 3:
Start feeling proud of failing, because failure means I tried. I pushed myself, I tried something new. I learnt from this what didn’t work, so next time, I have more of a chance of finding the thing that does. E.g. “Well done me for engaging and being brave” vs. “I failed, so I won't ever engage in that again”.
-> This helps me see failure as a badge of honour. I can feel comfortable saying to myself, even to others, “I failed”, because failure now isn't just about what happened, but about who I am being.
