Fail Often, with Great Joy

This is important. No one has perfect judgment. No one can, should, must, ought, or needs to be responsible all the time. No one can avoid mistakes. No one can live up to their own expectations or the expectations of others. In fact, assuming too much responsibility is more linked to trauma than it is too sainthood. I wish I had learned this earlier in life and I will spend the rest of my life giving other people permission to do what I could not allow myself to do for most of my life - fail often with great joy.

Fail at being 100% available.

Fail at avoiding pitfalls and mistakes.

Fail at trying so darn hard.

And notice, in the midst of all this failing to achieve, that everyone else is also failing.

Normalize failing and practice non-shaming responses. If we can pair those two principles together, then we can create an environment that is less traumatizing. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Armed with what we know - failing is not bad but it is inevitable - share failings aggressively. This serves several important purposes. It de-stigmatizes our shame and it encourages others. When Pete fails, I do not think he is a failure; I sigh with relief that maybe I do not have to be perfect either. It provides me a chance to remind him that we all fall short, so what? It helps to share with safe people, and that may require some additional failing along the way. I'm amazed at how differently humans respond to my own confessions of shortcoming. Sometimes I share and then feel that I made another mistake in sharing; I want to lie and hide from my limitations. But others get curious, ask questions, help me turn my failure into an experience, and remind me that I am not a mistake - I made a mistake.

2. Be the person other people can fail around. This doesn't mean that we never give feedback, we can and do (with permission). We just figure out how to be a safe person in the midst of recovering fromfailure.

3. Notice that the only way to avoid failure is to stop learning, growing, and leaning out over our skies a bit. It leaves one with a very, very small life.

How is fear of failure holding you back?

Practice Being Uncomfortable…

Failure is demotivating. It's frustrating. I do not always respond well when I perceive I have failed. I think this is a fairly predictable response to discomfort, but guess what? I'm learning that being uncomfortable is a precious gift on the path to growth.

Pete and I enjoy our empty nester early morning routine, which includes solving a puzzle or two before we rush off to a day filled with adulting. One of the puzzles I prefer, Kakuro, is a great crossword like puzzle without words. You have to align numbers 1 through 9 in such a way as to come up with the designated total count both vertically and horizontally. Sometimes it is really hard and I get frustrated trying to solve it. The secret is to just keep working the puzzle. Plug away, fill in what you can. Start with the easy ones - a two square line that equals 16 HAS to be 9 and 7, and if you put those two options down on paper, you might discover that there is only one square the 9 or 7 will fit with the corresponding vertical or horizontal line that has its own unique options and restrictions.

Here's the point: even when unmotivated, uninspired, freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional - keep moving. Not in a habitual, robotic, reactionary way - but from a place of humility, curiosity, and surrender. Maybe today I will not solve the problem set in front of me but I might get better skills for my effort. I may learn new tricks that will help me with tomorrow's puzzle.

If we feel like we have to be motivated to make progress, we are wrong. If we think we have to succeed, we are wrong. If we think we need to have warm fuzzy feelings about our adulting, we are wrong. Here's what's right: keep moving and as we move, try to pay attention to aligning ourselves with our core values.

I align myself with my core values when I follow my teacher's instructions for piano fingering practice. My values include the belief that I am a student of life and lessons learned in one arena inevitably translate into other dimensions of life. I value expertise and I appreciate when I have access to it. I believe that there is value in doing things that feel unnatural at first, because it is a sign that I am awake, alert and not asleep in a habitual, unconscious patterned way of thinking, feeling and behaving with certainty.

What do you need to practice today that will be uncomfortable?

Re-Framing Failure

Here is the thing about failure. It's like problems. It is inevitable. We will always have problems and we will always experience failure as long as we live. This is called reality. And it's not all bad news. Failure inspires innovation and creativity. Aren't sticky notes, one of my favorite school supplies EVER, the result of a failure to create something else?

Why, oh why, do we ever think that avoiding failures and problems is even a thing? It's NOT a thing.

So here is what is THE thing: horrific failures and huge disappointments are inevitable. The question is, what are we going to do about them? Are we going to allow them to define us or will we use them to teach us? I am sure there are plenty of GIFs and memes about how failure is a good thing. Failure is not a good thing. It is a useful necessity.

So I personally do not celebrate failure. I cry and pout and gnash my teeth and eat a jar of peanut butter. But eventually, I try to leverage the experience for change. Pain, it turns out, is necessary for growth.

So while we are all running around and trying to avoid failure, I ask you to reconsider: what are we losing by playing small, by being so afraid of failure that we shortchange our potential for growth...and dare I say it, even success.