500 Words a Week - Failure

“Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.”

Dr Carol Dweck

The above quote doesn’t just relate to failure, it expands to a mixture of emotions and feelings. There’s a large difference between thinking about failure in a “I have failed” compared to a “I’m a failure” viewpoint.

Failure isn’t something to constantly shy away from. Life is about making mistakes and learning from them. Sure, sometimes the weight of what may have happened can make it hard to see the future learning, but at one point you will be able to look back on what happened with clarity.

The danger is when we let failure or other emotions define us. Then we become trapped in a spiral. Petrified to do anything for fear of failing again, for fear of looking like a failure to our peers. If we think about this in another light, what if everyone was so afraid of what their peers think they didn’t do anything? Where would we be?

The reality is everyone is so wrapped up in their own issues, problems, or fear of failure to notice what’s happening with others.

Fear of failure is what holds us back from pursuing that with which we most want. A question to then ask ourselves is what’s the worst that can happen?

In life, it’s comfortable keeping the stabilizers on, but the fun only begins when we take them off. Sure, we may fall over, but we can get back up.

If you are too scared of other’s opinions or what others will say if you fail, that you don’t pursue what you want. You are letting others define the terms of your life.

“If you take risks and face your fate with dignity, there is nothing you can do that makes you small. If you don’t take risks, there is nothing you can do that makes you grand. Nothing. And when you take risks, insults by half-men, small men, those who don’t risk anything, are similar to barks by non-human animals. You can’t feel insulted by a dog.”

Nassim Taleb

Failure is a topic everyone deals with. Everyone struggles with. Failure wins when we let it control the terms of our life. Failure wins when we are too afraid of it to take risks, to step into the unknown, to chase what we want.

I’ll repeat the opening statement from Taleb, as I think it sums up what I’m trying to say in this blog:

“If you take risks and face your fate with dignity, there is nothing you can do that makes you small.”