Embracing Failure

You will know the feeling of striving for more! What I have seen for myself and for many clients is that striving for more, striving for better and looking for new is all familiar and to an extent comfortable. This tends to be why ambitious individuals do well in their work, get promoted early, given additional responsibilities and highlighted for leadership. However, if you identify with this description you will likely be familiar with fear of failure, the anxiety, stress and overwhelm when we are faced with a task or project that feels so big all you see is the pitfalls, problems and potential mistakes 100 miles in front.

What if there was more, what if instead of fearing failure we embraced failure, we played such a big game in our business or project that we allow unlimited creativity, ambitious approaches and new insights because we didn't limit ourselves with concerns of failure. What I have found to be true over the last 12 months of exploring this concept is I have achieved more in this short time frame then any other year, I have learnt how much I hold myself back, and most importantly, I have found that when we embrace failure, nothing truly terrible happens. Actually when we are open to it, we are open to learning about ourselves, about our projects and ultimately what we want to do. Recently I created what I believed in the moment to be an incredible project, the next big thing; The reality was this project failed on the front that It had one big flaw, it was not sustainable long-term. So what did this failure cost me? Some hours of admin time, the ‘pressure’ of facing the people I said I was withdrawing this project from and potential lost earning by putting energy into this instead of something else.

So What Did I Gain? 

I learnt that it is a simple process to take ideas into action, to paraphrase Nike’s slogan 'Just do it', this is what I had done and it was a powerful confidence boost for me, I hadn't feared failure and in giving myself this creative space to try I learnt so much. I learnt what's most important to me right now, I learnt that you don't need to have all the answers before you start and you don't lose anything from trying. I feel more powerful and creative from this experience than if I had sat on the metaphorical side lines and dreamt up another project which I thought was a great idea, then did nothing about it!

"I never view mistakes as failures. They are simply opportunities to find out what doesn't work." Thomas A. Edison

What Is Failure?

To embrace failure like I did, and explore your full potential, it can be useful to truly understand what it means to fail. Back in my education and social care careers I would use the phrase: FAIL, First, Attempt, In, Learning. Quoting Edison on the lightbulb and how he learnt 700 ways that wont work. This mindset still applies, life is a journey and we have an opportunity to see that it's not about 'getting it right' but being open to learning. When I shared this with young people what I was pointing to is 'getting it wrong' didn't have to mean anything bad or negative about them, so often we can attach our worth to outcomes, this simply isn’t true. I would highlight one key point to them; that if you are getting out there and exploring, why would we not credit that. So often in our modern world we champion outcomes, results and the ‘winners’ and not process, the attempts and the starters. When we embrace the process instead of outcome we are open to learning, encourage creativity and champion ambition.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert Einstein

So I have an invite for you, that dream, idea, project you've been sat on, start, start today! Or if you don't have something here is a powerful coaching question for you: Where are you holding yourself back in life? Sit with that in the lens of embracing failure and you will see how you could be playing a bigger game at life!