Failure

I’m pretty passionate about failure. Which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but it’s true. I firmly believe that failing is a huge key to helping us unlock our potential as individuals. We live in a world that lionizes winners and failing at anything opens you up to degradation and ridicule. 

But what if we were kinder to ourselves (and to others) and allowed us to see the beauty in failure? Failure helps us get to know ourselves better, it helps us develop empathy for other people, it helps us learn and grow, and it helps us detach from outcomes.

We all know the stories of Thomas Edison failing until he created a rudimentary lightbulb. But an often untold story of failure is Winston Churchill. As a young head of the Royal Navy, he fully believed the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915 would turn the tide in the war. He lobbied for the money and support to do it. In the end, nine months later, the Allies lost the battle and 250,000 people were dead. It is a tragic failure of historic proportions. As a result, Churchill resigned, joined the infantry, and worked his way up the ranks from the bottom until he was Prime Minister. He said, “All my past life had been a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

Every failure is like every triumph: it’s a brick in the building of what makes us who we are. You get to choose if that’ll be a wobbly brick or a strong, foundational one.

And did you know that practicing failing can enhance your brain health and ability to learn? In his podcast “The Huberman Lab,” Dr. Andrew Huberman explains that if you spend 7-30 min specifically devoted to making errors and working through them, you trigger neuroplasticity in the brain, which in turn will help you learn more than if you’d quit at the first sign of failure. 

So the next time you are practicing something — drawing, learning a new language, math — push through the wall of “failure” and frustration. You’ll learn more even if it doesn’t feel like you are in the moment.

Don’t confuse this concept with the Silicon Valley “fail fast” mentality though. Failure just happens in the natural course of life, and as we all know, the natural course of life can move very slowly. 

Rest assured that you are going to “fail” at something, but you get to decide how that affects you. Will you let it build you up or will you let it tear you down? 

If you are scared of failure, you’re not alone. I’d wager that more people are scared of failing than those that aren’t. I personally only broke through my fear of failure by failing A LOT, both professionally and personally. But it’s ok! Each experience is a lesson to learn from, even if the lesson is to not take something too seriously. 

So, how can you practice getting comfortable with failure? 

One easy way is to set yourself up for failure. My friend once asked me why I set such intense goals for myself. I said because if I fail on the way to achieving something big, I’ll have done more than if I set a reasonable goal for myself. So try setting a crazy goal for yourself and see what happens. 

Another way to practice failure is to use the learning scenario where you’ll work through the wall of frustration for a while, then step away and let it go. (This is what I’ll be working on this week because I do NOT like when I get frustrated with a problem haha)

You could enter a contest you’ve been curious about for a while. Who cares if you don’t win? In the scope of life, it doesn’t matter. 

I hope this puts a lighter spin on failure for you so it isn’t this heavy weight you have to carry around. Have fun with it! 

With gratitude, 

Natalie