If at first you don’t succeed… well, why not?
What’s your relationship with failure?
Are you old friends, sworn enemies or complete strangers, surprised and somewhat alarmed when they show up in spooky rags on your doorstep?
We’ve all heard the platitudes: “failure only exists when you quit”, “if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again”, and “failure defeats losers but inspires winners” (ouch bro)...
…but it’s not until you actually feel failure, and the self reproach and sinking guts that go with it, that you realise: this failure thing is more than just pulling up your bootstraps and having another crack. Failure can read as “WRONG WAY. TURN BACK.”
So what then?
Over the past few weeks I have felt like a failure magnet, beset by big and small mistakes that cling like metal shavings that I just can’t brush off.
*flustered sparrow
The death of our lovely hen… my lack of animal husbandry skills? The loss of twenty half-incubated eggs as we moved a broody chook under the cover of darkness and she hated it. Quitting freelance jobs right before a period of travel when I’ll really need the flexibility... and cash. Planting our tomatoes too close together. Not planning for drought. Mismanaging podcast releases. Receiving health news that highlights a historic, perhaps even wilful, lack of self care. Not being there for friends and family. Changing plans relentlessly.
Forgetting to run a proper tech check in advance of a live podcast event, my guest’s headset glitching, eager faces filling the Zoom room, and no matter what the digitally gifted Jordan Osmond tried we just couldn’t hear her voice and had to fold.
Being a gut-compass-led creature, I have always tracked towards excitement and ease, away from what’s sticky and tough, seeing “failure” as a clear cue to alter course. Why go that way when it’s so damn rocky?
But knowing how many great and worthy missions require persistence and perspiration – a second, or third, or fiftieth attempt before making land – I really have to wonder:
When is failure a red flag, when is it feedback, and when is it simply a hiccup you’ve just gotta breathe through?
Deciphering the messages and meanings of failure feels important as we all try to forge beautiful, purposeful lives for ourselves, bereft of the healthy culture and village stratigraphy which would’ve made personal growth (and planetary service) a little easier to navigate, a little more held.
Tell me dear reader, how does failure teach you?