Why not fail?
I'm reading about failing, and the value it can bring to your life. Although, on a purely head level I can agree, my heart just doesn't seem to want to concur.
Author Pema Chodron writes in her commencement speech, Fail Fail Again Fail Better, that when we fail, "we feel really bad about ourselves and label ourselves "a failure." We have this feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with us..."
I don't remember my parents insisting on me always winning, but I think I learned early on that when you did you got praised, and it felt good. When you failed or messed up sometimes you got punished, and that didn't feel so good. Embarrassment and humiliation were emotions to be avoided.
By the time I was late elementary age I think I'd figured it out. Couple that with being a first born, and you had the perfect storm for perfectionist. What you learned is to stick to the things you do well, and not to venture too far off the beaten path.
Honor rolls and accolades became my oxygen. Pleasing my parents and later the parents of my students were all important. Making sure to NEVER do anything wrong was all encompassing. If perchance I did fail it would pretty much be guaranteed I wouldn't try it again. I guess it just wasn't my thing.
Except, I can't help but wonder what might have been different in my life if I had been encouraged to fail; celebrated for the beginning efforts and lauded for the progression of those attempts? As much as I think I'd like to try this approach, I'm beginning to wonder if the old dog mentality won't allow for this new trick?
Is it really possible to be okay with failure or are you just faking it hoping everyone will go along with your defeats? Gretchen Rubin likes to write about the "fun of failure" but for some reason it just doesn't seem to ring true to me.
Perhaps if I begin with some low stake endeavors I might be able to ease into this "failing again, and better" thing. Ironically, I seem to be failing at the very art of failure embracement. Geez!
You expressed your thoughts so well! I have heard the hype about failing and I can’t quite get enthused. What was the process that ended in failure. There is the real gem. What were we doing when we decided it had failed. Did it fail just for that moment. Can it be revived and move towards a more successful end? I’m still knitting even though I failed at seeing the difference between knit and purl for a time. Just for a time I failed at that. It is different today. I have succeeded at seeing the difference.
ReplyDeleteI once heard about a Dad who would ask his kids at the dinner table what they had failed at that day. It would be a springboard to conversation about what they could do next. The kids seemed to embrace the idea that failure and mistakes were just opportunities to try again or in a different way. I need to remember this with my grandson.
Delete