Moving Beyond the Focus on Failure
I heard it again. “What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What if it’s not Perfect?”
The pain in their voices broke my heart, just like it does every time I hear those words. Fear of failure is crippling - it consumes creativity and spits it out raw. It comes from that dark place in our minds that keeps us small and prevents us from attempting to find joy in something new.
One of the challenges we might face when standing on the brink of something new and great, is getting past a fear of failure. Doing the thing despite feeling it just might not be the Best Ever. Thae we might not be the Best Ever. Before we can give our minds over to creating possibility, we need to face how a failure mindset will itself bake in failure to the best laid plans . And this is a tough one!
How do you guarantee you’ll avoid failure? Simple: You don’t start anything new.
You can’t fail if you don’t try, right?
If you don’t fail, you don’t get laughed at, or made to feel small, or compared to your “perfect older sister” or that nice boy down the street. This is an awful place to be, and history sure can colour the future. But is this where you want to stay? What if you could feel the joy of success? What if you could quiet those old voices in your head and move forward, one step at a time?
When fear is the barrier, I’m an advocate of gentleness, rather than Just GO FOR IT cheerleading. You may not GOT THIS at all! And if you don’t, start by remembering what you DO have. What do you rock at? Applying large doses of kindness and reminders of past success builds confidence. You need to get yourself to a place where you want to make progress, because Progress is what lies between Utter Failure (where you might think you’re at) and Ultimate, Life-changing Success. It’s not all or nothing. You can build the ability to succeed by doing. By doing your best, even if it’s not THE best.
Let’s look first at what might be considered a failure.
We need to examine what we really mean when we ask ourselves, “What if I fail?” Well, what if you do? What - honestly, now - is the worst that could happen?
What constitues a failure right now?
Is it a failure if it’s not absolutely perfect?
If the deadline slips a bit?
If something else is not done in order to do this thing?
Is this a low or a high risk situation?
And what support do you need to succeed?
What can you put in place to ease your way to a good outcome?
Write this stuff down if you feel overwhelmed. Work it out online or on paper. Try writing the story of this, ending with you attaining the success you’re looking for. And, you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” (apologies to the Talking Heads). Dive into that a bit. How DID you get here?
If you’re learning something new, or putting a new practice into place what is your expectation of yourself? Be honest, and then cut yourself some slack.
A whole bunch of slack.
If you’ve been in one of my Artist’s Way courses, you’ll remember the stunning - there’s really no other word for it - version of Girl with a Pearl Earring I made in a Parks and Rec Acrylics course with friends. The results from the first couple of weeks were fairly close to terrifying. I do not have a natural talent for drawing or painting, much as I would love to. What that course showed me was that, despite no natural talent, practice makes, well, better. More practice made even better. It never did make perfect, but it made progress. And I know what I need to do if I want to get better. It’s very, very simple: I need to work at it. A lot.
My choice is to be proud that the resulting painting is recognizeable.. Yup, that’s the bar in this case, and I’m fine with it. Why on EARTH would I expect my first attempt at painting to be anywhere near the result of YEARS of work on Vermeer’s part? I could count it as an abject failure because it won’t get hung in the Mauritshuis beside Vermeer’s original, sure, but even reading that sounds silly. I learned some great techniques, had fun with my friends, and maybe most importantly, I allowed myself to feel good about what I’d produced without comparing it to any of my classmate, the teacher, or Vermeer. I made progress.
Progress is what matters, not perfection. Whether the stakes are high or low, progress includes doing your best and reaching out for the help that’s needed to move along that continuum from Utter Failure (or, DOING NOTHING) to Ultimate, Life-Changing Success.
Give yourself some grace, do your best, keep at it, and you’ll find that successes start to breed success.
