Fail for the Win!

Failure for the Win!

James Perkins of the podcast Opinionly Speaking once said, “I wish I had a mirror for every time I f*cked up.” He then goes on to say that ‘speaking that sh*t into the universe…makes it come back to you.’ And then he says to be ‘hard on yourself’. Mr. Perkins and I disagree on two out of three things. I too, wish I had a mirror showing me how I f*cked up. Yet I do not want to be hard on myself as a kind of self punishment. And I do not feel it’s a good thing to obsess over things coming back to us mysteriously out of the universe if we do things incorrectly. In fact, I find great value in f*cking up. I find it is the most important thing to do in life and I hope that you yourself have f*cked up today. F*cking up, is the best thing that can possible happen to anyone.

As a child I was taught that it was a terrible thing to make mistakes. My mother had untreated obsessive compulsive disorder as well as narcissistic personality disorder possibly from trauma. My father is more than a little autistic. I use these labels to try and help you understand how it came to be that I grew up believing that everything had to be perfect all the time. Mistakes were not allowed. If a person made a mistake, a misplaced fork while setting the table for a fancy dinner, for instance, the punishment was to be told negative things and sometimes hit. What that did to me was negatively reinforce a few things. First of all I believed I was only worthy of negative attention. Second of all, I believed I was in fact stupid, unworthy and unable to do anything right. I heard so often that I was unable to do anything right in anger that I came to believe it and to internalize that anger.

Here’s the thing.

Fucking up is wonderful. And if you haven’t ever fucked up, the fact is there is no way you can or will ever be a success. I had to unlearn a fear of failure and embrace failure as a teacher. I also had to learn to love myself through feelings of shame and anger associated with what I perceived as failure and lastly, I needed to redefine what failure meant.

As a child if we learn from our failures in an ideal environment; we are told that failure is not worthy of a trophy, but that it is also okay. It’s not a great idea to give out participation trophies rewarding mediocrity and it’s not a great idea to tell someone who has not won that they are somehow subpar. The winner has learned and earned their victory and the loser is in process of learning. That is all. It’s not bigger than that. We need to remove the shame from losing, not imagine everyone is a winner. If everyone is told they are a winner when they lose, this leads to disappointment in life when a child grows up and realizes they aren’t in fact, special for showing up, for participating. Participation is required. Excelling deserves reward. At the same time, losing, is not terrible. Losing is where the lesson begins. There is great opportunity in loss.

The first article I wrote for publication makes me cringe. The last article I wrote for publication makes me cringe. All I see are my mistakes and this is not a bad thing. Hopefully, moving forward, the mistakes will teach me. For many years I mistakenly used the word, ‘allot’ incorrectly. I was unaware this was incorrect due to my own deficits. Someone pointed it out. Ever since, I have realized that I was not going for a run -allot. No. I was going for a run -a lot. Now to me and my literal mind this seems like a mistake of the English language and an error in syntax, as it does break some linguistic rules, for the most part. Yet, until the age of fifty, I did not know this. Should I be ashamed? I guess I could, but I can’t imagine how that would benefit me or anyone. So. Why would I waste my time doing that?

Shame is not constructive, even as a motivator because if we are ashamed and then we are always eventually de-motivated. Who wants to succeed if in the end all there is -is a whip and laughing masses? I posit, no one. I feel like it should be obvious that humans and especially children are not motivated by shame. Respect and appreciation, on the other hand, gets sh*t done. We are so interested in sustainability when it comes to the planet, but not toward ourselves. Positive things are motivating in a sustainable way. Negative motivation might get a person to run for a day, but if you want them on the run for a lifetime, dangle happiness, fulfillment and other positive rewards in front of them.

So how do we begin to change this fear of failure into an attitude of learning? Take a moment every morning when fresh, to look back on the previous day. How did it go? Where did you fail? Where did you succeed? What, objectively, can be learned from the failures? Write down the lessons you have learned. Keep a journal of every failure you have ever made. Don’t call it a Failure Journal. No. This is your Success Journal. It will show you your own unique roadmap to success in a way a life coach or therapist of any kind cannot possibly compete. There, in your own private journal, you can be completely honest. Endeavor to refrain from using any words or phrases that cast a negative judgement on the perceived failure. Also question if indeed it is a failure and if later a thing perceived as failure was in fact success, do not forget to make a note of that! No one is watching. Literally nobody cares but yourself, because nobody knows it’s there. It is a journal between yourself and your goals alone.

Take a hard look at what it is you want to do in life, your dreams and ambitions. Take a special hard look at the ones you put away and told yourself were out of reach. Are they out of reach because you are afraid you will fail? If so, please consider committing to those dreams. Consider looking at them differently. What if instead of having an inner narrative that says, ‘I can’t go to film school because it is too expensive’, we said something else? Look for the fear of failure in that statement and address it. That statement really says, ‘I am afraid I will not be able to afford film school and I won’t have enough money or make enough money when I graduate, I am afraid the whole idea is stupid and will set me up to fail at life.’ Okay. Now we’ve got something right? Now it’s time to investigate.

Breaking down the statement further we are looking for the questions in the statement. For instance, the first question would be if we are unafraid of failure; can I go to film school? And that question can be broken down into several more questions. Can I afford film school? Or even; how can I afford film school? Is film school too expensive? How much money will I earn over a lifetime after film school vs. not going? Will I be able to pay loans back? What does the payback look like? Is it worth it? What jobs to film students qualify for?

Fear makes us reactive. If we function out of fear we become puppets of our own subconscious. In order to take control of our lives, we have to remove control from our environment, other people places and things, and fear. If we do one thing every day that leads us to failure, then we do one thing every day that leads to growth, to learning and to excellence if we use it as the tool it is meant to be. If you don’t believe me, or you don’t think it’s worth it I want you to do two things.

1. Go an entire day without using a lightbulb. Not a single one of any kind.

Then—

2. Find out how many times Edison failed in making a lightbulb.

Then—

go out there and fail.

F*ck sh*t up. Do it. While you may regret it for a short while, I promise the benefits far outweight the cost. All dreams die in the face of fear of failure. As we grow we learn that failure can be mitigated, risks can be managed innovation is born of mistakes and the only finite resource there is in this world is time. Where would we be without the skills of mitigation and risk management? Where would we be without innovation? How dark is a place that has never known the pure white phosphorous light of an electric light bulb? We would be in the dark and worse, we would be right where we started for all eternity. The way forward is messy ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between. The way forward is fraught with catastrophe. Yet progress and joy await. So let’s fail for the win!