The thing about failure

Failure.

What a concept.

And a concept I don’t believe in.

I used to fear it. Heaven forbid if I failed at anything- especially publicly.

I feared failure so much I lost 12kg (26 pounds) in a space of 6 months in my last year of high school. I was so anxious but VCE that I could barely eat.

And then I learnt more about myself. I learnt how I infused so much of my self-worth into how successful I was.

Let me put it this way: I was that annoying person you grew up with who had it “all”. I was the one who was always in newsletters for winning some karate competition, or getting some award or something or another.

So when I hit university, I started seriously re-evaluating my relationship with myself. I re-evaluated how I saw myself and recognised that my entire existence was based around my success.

My happiness, my genuine, pure happiness, relied on external circumstances.

So you can imagine that when things didn’t go to plan, how much I despised myself. With each loss, failure or defeat, I would tell myself I wasn’t good enough- and not in an empowering way when someone might say “Nope, I need to do better” and then carry on. It would gnaw at me, linger around for days, months, weeks, if not years.

There came a point where I realised I had two choices: maintain that fear of failure, or shift it.

I decided on the latter.

I have succeeded a lot, and continue to succeed a lot. But I’ve failed even more.

And anyone who has achieved anything in their life will say that sounds about right. All the greats in their field are where they are today because of all the failures that have led them to where they are today. For every one success, there are at least (and this is a broad at least), half a dozen failures (at least- more accurate would be dozens of failures).

But here’s the thing- we don’t see them as failures.

Failure just isn’t a thing. It’s not something to hold onto.

It’s a lesson. It’s a redirection. It’s just something that didn’t work out in a certain way.

For example, you’re walking down the street to get to a restaurant. About 100 metres down the path, you realise you’ve walked down the wrong street. What do you do? You change direction until you find yourself at the restaurant.

You wouldn’t consider that a failure, would you?

You wouldn’t hold onto it and make it mean that you’re useless and not good enough, would you?

Then why do that for anything else?

See things that didn’t “work out” the same as walking down the wrong street. That’s one less “wrong” way you have to worry about, isn’t it? When things don’t lead you to where you want them to, see them as one more way of how not to do something. Saves you plenty of time in the future, doesn’t it?

There’s another note I want to mention:

Did it not work out?

Or did it not work out how you planned for it to?

There’s a difference.

Something still has plenty of time and space to work out, but would you allow for that time and place if it’s not happening how you expected it to in the way you wanted it to?

Sit with that for a moment the next time you think life just isn’t happening for you.

Because it is.

These ‘failures’, these ‘lessons’, these ‘redirections’- they’re a cue you’re meant to follow. This cue guides you on what you need to tweak and adjust to get yourself on the right track.

There is no such thing as failure.

Only lessons.

Only another way how not to do something.

Only redirections.

It’s never actually really over until you decide for it to be.

And even then, is that thing you wanted to work out really a failure?

Or is it something you’ve learnt from?