Failure

When we think of failure we judge it by our perception of success, success can take on any form. A figure that determines our self-worth, whether it is on a scale or in cheque book, whether we’re married, or single, whether we have children, or base our success on our career. Failure is subjective, but everyone feels it, and everyone is afraid of it on some level, there are three kinds of people those who succeed, those who do not and those who have never tried. Successful people aren’t afraid to fail on the level that we are. They use their failure as motivation and become hungry for their dreams rather than giving up or making excuses that 'it wasn't meant to be'.  Growing up my family used to tell me, you only fail if you fail to try. Some people feel failure to the extent that they fail to try because they are so terrified of failing. I admit I've been one of them. 

Our mind works in mysterious ways, some of which we haven’t even uncovered the explanation for these neurological processes. When we think of success, we think of failure, similarly when we think of happiness we think of unhappiness.  Lev Grossman in 'The magicians' talks about the power of imagination  because it enables us to believe that ‘happiness was a real, actual achievable possibility.' A lot of us view happiness as this unattainable thing and if we think this we talk ourselves out of trying. He also talks about the other reason why we are afraid to succeed is an ‘anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you’ve done all the work to get something you don’t even want it anymore.' This may not be true for some people, however, this is a reason why we are so afraid of happiness and so afraid of success because then we don’t know what else comes next.

I was talking to my boyfriend today about my fears working towards being a therapist and a writer. What they would all mean, and if I ever would reach a point that I would be good enough. What he said was not what I was expecting, he told me to prepare to be shit. As we talked, I understood what he meant. To accept that, at times your skill might be shit, but it can always improve, and its only when we accept our failures and the areas that we’re shit in, that we change. We don’t need to beat ourselves up about it we just give all we can to become better than we were before. He reminded me that no one needs an ego, no one is perfect and most definitely no novice writer ends up being flawless the first time they write a manuscript or maybe even the third time. Everything involves accepting that you might fail, but trying anyway, because if you don’t try then what’s the point?

We shouldn’t be afraid to seek others out, or jealous of those who are more successful than us, they are our teachers. They may have more experience in our field or refined their skill or craft at a greater level than us, therefore our ego shouldn’t matter. These budding writers, bestselling authors and therapists aren’t my competition, they’re my allies. As the Dalai Lama once said, when the student is ready the teacher will appear.  

Your craft might take years to refine, that’s okay, but if we stop just because we don’t match the level of someone else, then we’re giving up. All those people who are successful, aren’t afraid of failure, they’ve accepted it, they’ve welcomed it as a stepping stone toward success and sometimes it necessary that we make mistakes. Our fear of failure shouldn’t paralyse us from trying the next best thing in our lives. If we think of failure as a positive in our lives, we can change our narrative and use failure to our advantage.